It's a fortnight now since I drove Hurricane for a day on the 'Purple' timetable. Turning up at 8am to light up, I was worried she'd be cold, as according to the roster she hadn't been out all week, but evidently there had been a fusible check and water change the day before and - I'm glad to say - either hot water had been used or she'd been warmed through. I had my first taste on the footplate of the magnificently overhauled Dr Syn (just to chuck the fire out but that was enough). Thrilled to find the double regulator had been retained; love the livery but very sad because it's the livery I had hoped No9 might get when she comes back. She was black lined yellow the first time I saw her - I've an old photo from a slide (just realised it's not on this hard-drive - I'll try and upload it on Monday) - notice the pipe going into the chimney, part of the experiment with oil-firing going on then - but she looked superb. I wonder what livery she will get now?
And I had a fantastic day, very lucky with the weather. The road hadn't been checked, so it was a 10mph crawl out to Dungeness - at one point much slower because the rail up to Half Mile Curve was dreadful - and I do mean 10mph as I don't know how you can spot an open joint from a steam loco going any faster (I'd been told there had been two such the previous day). Anyway, all was well, and I decided my challenge would be absolute minimum coal usage. At one point I tried too hard and was losing steam and water; but No8 seemed on good form, steaming steadily at 170psi and not 150 as used to be normal.
I took advantage of the last long break at Dungeness to clean the top off thoroughly, saving time back at Romney and enabling me to do a thorough job underneath, and tube properly - when disaster struck and I caught the blower ring with the rod and bent it about four inches out of alignment. It wouldn't sit back properly and I had to leave an apologetic booking in the Repair Book.
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