While the wind was still blustery and blowey, the sun was out nice and bright as I walked down Cliff Road from Camberly House to the library in time for the 9:30 opening. After printing off directions to my B&B for next week, it was up to the NNR station for the 10:30 train to Holt (but I was getting off at Weybourne). Of course, no need to guess which locomotive was on the front of the train.
But surprise of surprises, no sooner had #5619 hooked onto the train but who should be tootling along behind but Ivor the Engine! Actually, Ivor is an animated children's television series complete with his own little railway somewhere in the top left corner of Wales. Idris the dragon (fire spewing, of course) lives in his boiler which means that Ivor is ecologically friendly, although Idris does like lumps of coal from time to time.
Now in case you are wondering what M&LRTCoLtd stands for (I certainly was all day), being that Ivor is from the top left corner of Wales, it stands for the
Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. Ivor travels all around Britain visiting the various steam preservation railways each weekend. And he does pretty good seeing as how Thomas The Tank Engine has pretty much priced himself out of the market.
We were up to the shops for 10:45 and I started to lay out the air hoses and extension cords to do some more needle gunning and wire wheeling. Nigel of Scarlett had arrived earlier and was in the process of torching some bolts off the BP tank wagon with the oxy-acetylene torches. Or rather, he was torching the bolts off with the oxy-propane torches. So, I gave him a hand as we spent the good part of the day torching bolts, setting various parts of the tank on fire, trying to get four wooden braces loose. Fortunately, we had the water hose close by.
In the meantime, Ivor kept going up and down the line between Sheringham and Holt in between the big trains that were running up and down the line. This meant stopping our work to take a look at this little engine. In between, Ivor drew into the yard which enable me to get a closer look at this little docker (he used to work the docks up in Bristol).
I managed to get a bit more wire wheeling done later in the day, after which I applied a coat of primer to what I had done to keep the rust at bay. As I was getting ready to go back down to Sheringham at the end of the day, Ivor came in for his last run of the day. The doors to the coach were opened and out poured a whole bunch of kids with their parents. This required that they get a closer look at Ivor and even a visit to the foot plate, while we waited for the big trains to pass by. I was going to take this train back down to Sheringham but I got distracted talking to John.
Oh well, maybe tomorrow.
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