JULY 2010 News

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July started with the boiler inspector calling to give the Marshall its yearly checkup. We were fairly certain that there would be nothing needing doing after the replacement of the stays last year and this turned out to be the case. Of course, with the July steaming only three days after, we had to make sure all the bits were back on the boiler and everything was ready for the Sunday. Bolting up the manholes and mudholes and reassembling the safety valves was done the same day with the boiler mostly filled, then the Sunday saw the safety valves set.

The next big event was the road run on Friday 16th: The Somerset Steam Spectacular takes place at Low Ham over the weekend of the 17th/18th and on the Friday many of the participating vehicles do a road run around the Levels. This year their route would pass the station and they wanted to call in for a steaming! The last time this had happened was in 2006 so the first thing was to arrange to hire an adjacent farmers field for parking: with the weather forecast looking unsettled for the event we did not want loads of heavy vehicles churning the car park into mud.

As it happened, despite the previous day blowing a gale and loads of rain the car park was still quite hard and dry and was soon full of interesting vehicles with other cars and lorries being parked in the field down the road. The drive, already filled with volunteers cars, became a parking place for traction engines and a steam wagon while a couple of Stanley steam cars and another traction engine were parked adjacent to the Marshall boiler.

The Somerset Traction Engine Club who organised the event did the marshalling and by midday the station was packed, with standing room only in the tea room! Nigel beavered away stuffing the boiler and dramatically reducing the amount of wood on site while Jason's mum was selling her excellent cakes in the tea room and Christine was pouring gallons of tea and coffee(Note from Web-Ed....actually I was taking the money; the old grey matter still manages with mental arithmetic). Response from the visitors was very positive with -hopefully- some new members coming out of this, and despite the forecast the weather remained dry, with the heavy rain only coming in after the last visitor had left. Another visitor was the boiler inspector, who called in to check the operation of the safety valves and feed pumps. No problems there and we are now okay for another year.

Aside from the special events, work has been ongoing: in the new pump room the Mumford has been refitted to the wall and the large green Weir pump from the main hall is now on a new base in the corner. Some of the walls have received a lime wash and the first of the boarding has been put up beside the workbench to mount the tools on. Around the corner in the scullery, the ceiling has been painted and the next stage is to replaster the wall at the far end. Some more shutters are being replaced before they fall apart, the door to the pump room has been repaired and the planning application for the new toilets is in place and should hopefully be approved soon.

Next year will be the 150th anniversary of the Easton & Amos and the 125th of the Wills engine. We are looking for suggestions for ideas or activities that can be done as part of a special event. There will also be a major push over the winter to get the engine house fettled up ready for this, a case of all hands to the pump but more offers of help are always welcome!

This month's jigsaw: the Tasker traction engine parked beside the Marshall; www.jigsawplanet.com/?m=pr&id=5e1bef5d567489b4

Andy

Previous news for 2009 can be downloaded (zipfile) here

All newspages for 2008, including December's issue, can be downloaded (zipfile)here. Note that August's news got lost!