6619

Well, I'm certainly older.

 

Well, I managed to get on yesterday without a chair lift! While sitting on top of the motion removing and replacing innumerable corks and pouring oil into innumerable holes I did ponder on how other railway companies managed to build engines with less of an appetite for oil. With her longer wheelbase 6619 is very smooth and doesn't notice the dropped joints that our other locos object to so much. She steamed well, despite being fired with what Seagull claims is coal but which seems to consist of rather a lot of stuff that doesn't burn. She tootles up Tenterden bank comfortably and without fuss - no mortgaging of the boiler needed which is rather refreshing!

 

It's not the appetite for oil that creates the agony so much as the inability for a normally sized and built human being to reach and feed the multifarious oiling points without risking pain or being interminably stuck and unable to extricate oneself until starvation renders sufficient bodily size reduction to do so. The alternative is to squeeze up between the crank axle and the ashpan/boiler and risk being roasted alive on your back and ripped to shreds on your front. As I've said many times before, once oiled up it is a good old thing and will produce the necessary steam to do the job.

 

I did climb between the crank axle and the ashpan - I do so on all our other inside cylinder locos. My worry about coming in from the other end is that I won't be able to turn round and get back out, thus suffering from terminal starvation and being posted down between the rods when thin enough.

 

On the loco roster section of the K&ESR Website, 6619 is shown as working the services this coming weekend. As the roster for April was posted a while ago, please could someone confirm whether it is correct, and that it is planned to use 6619 on Saturday.

Thanks

 

Don't know about this coming W/E but the old Gal was out and about this last one. I gather that some loco crews are struggling to make the thing steam, which I do find hard to believe! That was one thing that it certainly did once the Kylchap was fitted. A good thick back end, up to the door and higher, sloping down to virtually nothing at the front and just feeding the coal in and letting it go where it wants always worked fine with me.

 

As far as we know, that's the plan. She was certainly out today. Mind you, so was Gervase, and I'm not sure what can be read into that!

 

Thanks very much, Fireline.

 

So the G.W.R employed gorillas!