29 January 2005

A 21 turn today, 3 round trips on the O1, or so it was planned....  Unfortunately, the loco was suffering a bit from priming, and also had a tendancy to slip a little more often than would be expected, so and unscheduled return to the yard to do another blow-down was taken, at which point we were informed that somethign untoward had been picked up on the track walk.

Unknown to us on the footplate, one of the leaf springs was damaged, and several pieces of broken plate had fallen out onto the track.  We were immediately declared a failure, and the standard class 4 tank, which was already being warmed through for the next day, was brought into steam as a replacement.   As a result, we only missed one trip, and did escape the drizzle that fell in the afternoon!