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Mid-winter steam-up at Grant Alexander's Squirrel Valley Railway - 21st & 22nd June 2008This was POEM's first outing since I bought her in June 2008. I had her for only one week before Grant Alexander's mid-winter steam-up at his railway. Grant let me borrow his trailer as in the week since I'd bought POEM John Bremner and I had not had the chance to build my own. Grant's loco is big but even so POEM was a very tight squeeze - we reckon there was about 3-4mm gap down either side! John and I will definitely make my trailer a bit bigger to make life easier. My car performed well with over 1 ton on the towbar and the half-hour journey from the workshop to Grant's line was uneventful. Unloading at Grant's track was fairly easy as the ramp is the right height for his trailer (obviously) and the loco and tender were soon on the track. This was the first time I'd seen POEM on rails and she looked great. John and I both through that all the effort to get her from Auckland was well worth it. Next job... raise steam. John had cut enough bits of wood to fill a 1 gallon ice-cream carton - well that disappeared in the firebox with room to spare, so we rustled up some more. Once this was alight we threw a shovel full of coal on top and after a while the pressure started to rise. Note to self for next time - cut lots of firewood. We noticed a few leaks but POEM seemed to be in good order. Next came the great moment when POEM moved off under her own steam. OK, so she's 13 years old and has run before, but there is something special about running your new loco for the first time. For some reason the reverser was stuck in dead-centre and didn't want to move. It had moved fine when cold but now with 80 psi of steam on the valves the reverser wouldn't budge. Much scratching of heads and John gave me a nudge and then... POEM erupted like a geyser and leapt forward. I put her back in neutral and everyone said "ah, the regulator works backwards to normal". The regulator had been wide open and the steam chests were full of steam at 80 psi - which is why the reverser wouldn't budge. That embarrassing incident over (and caught on Grant's video camera to be shown for ever more to remind me), the rest of the day went great! It was supposed to rain but stayed fine all day and I may have caught the sun a bit. There were a few other locos there too. A very nice PHANTOM built by Dennis Collins in only 10 months! Robert Patterson's particularly nice NZR Hunslet Dsa class diesel and Grant's battery-electric "diesel" was running. He didn't get his SR&RL's 2-6-2 out as he was too busy being the host. There were also a number of people there running their G-scale live steam (Grant has G-scale and 7¼" gauge in his garden). One interesting problem later on was how to drop the fire. John managed to hook one of the grate segments out but we were both expecting to be able to just drop the whole grate out the bottom - it doesn't work like that. We got loaded up easily enough and took POEM back to John's workshop in Hamilton and whilst cleaning her up we looked back at a great day which both of us really enjoyed. So I wonder where we are off to next? Grant's steam-up was a two day affair but I only went on the Saturday as I had something booked for Sunday. In some ways it is just as well as the weather as truly awful on the Sunday. What a shame that the day was so wet after all the preparation, still, Saturday was a great day. As a footnote, I received this note from Grant:
POEM with Grant's SR&RL 2-6-2
My wife enjoying her first ride with me driving
Dennis' grand-daughter Savannah spent several hours driving his PHANTOM
Ben Sewell from New Plymouth driving Grant's DA class followed by Robert Patterson on his Dsa
By the end of the day I'd relaxed a bit. It took a while to start to understand her moods and habits
The G-scale layout was also popular
POEM sitting quietly simmering after a great day's running
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21st June 2008
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