The Start of the Season

Well two months ago we started the preparation for the new season. You know the drill:
· re-fill the water systems drained to stop frost damage in October,
· top up the batteries and then recharge them,
· pump the oil round and test it for contamination and viscosity,
· clean the contacts on the switches, relays and other devices that will have tarnished in the winter due to condensation and lack of use,
· check springs are still springy……(!?) and replace if necessary,
· clean off the brush holders and supports on the generator and numerous motors.
The last one is not as easy as it sounds, many of the motors for exhausters, compressors, and pumps are mounted such that the driven item is easier to get at than the motor. This arrangement made sense during the era prior to preservation when the driven part was usually more temperamental in constant use than the motor, and anyway both could be removed with a hoist in a warm dry workshop if anything went wrong. In preservation it is generally the motors that give trouble when they sit comparatively idle for long periods of time.

The worst offenders for being awkward to get at are the traction motors, so it was with some trepidation that I turned up for a working party with Dzus and Andy. They had done much of the pre-season preparation the previous weekend……

On arrival I was handed a clean cloth, some isoclene, a hard hat and a pair of long rubber gloves, so I knew I was to start on the traction motors…… The traction motor brush gear is accessed from underneath the bogie, through a gap of about 30cm wide in the base of the motor (normally covered by a flap that is double secured).

The first job to complete was to bail the water out of the pit next to the depot building, then, remove the remains of the ash and clinker. Once I had completed the clear out and dropped the plastic box containing our cleaning kit into the pit, Dzus shunted the loco into position using the station pilot. The pit is only just long enough to get one bogie over it at a time, and even then access is limited to a squeeze between the pit edge and the buffer beam pipework.
Andy put on the “not to be Moved” boards and he and I descended through the gap into the pit. Standing in a steam shed pit is never clean, crawling about in one is perhaps the dirtiest thing you can do.

There doesn’t appear to be any way of undertaking the clean up without getting the muck to run down the gloves and accumulate in your arm pit. So by the time we’d finished cleaning the traction motors and re-securing the covers on the No 1 end bogie we looked like escapees from the Black and White Minstrel Show.

There are two choices for conduct when the loco is moved to allow access to the No 2 end bogie; the version I’m sure the HSE would approve (climb out of pit, move loco, climb back in the pit), and the version we use (duck down and let Dzus move the loco over our heads). Being bent double in a confined space, head down and keeping hands clear of the rails pushes the body into a contorted shape. Needless to say under these conditions the excess pressure from the previous evenings beer and curry started to make itself felt. By the time Dzus had re-chocked the loco, the air in the pit was thick, and Andy and I were laughing ourselves silly.

After the work was complete, we elected to stay put while Dzus removed the loco from over our heads, with the same results from our digestive systems. As we emerged back into daylight from the foul pit, a passing fireman and his mate covered their noses and were heard to refer to us as the “Swamp Monsters from the Black Lagoon”.

For the next few weekends Andy found he had to answer to “Swampy”. But my part seems largely to have been forgotten…..