Great Central Railway Loughborough Leicestershire 13th February 2022

Another episode in the long-running "The Romance of Steam" series!

Those purple/blue flames tell the story of BR Standard 4MT 2-6-4T 80080's fire. It was well and truly clinkered across the back of the grate and although this didn't actually cause any problems out on the line we did run shy of steam pressure. Now back on shed I had to try and clean it off the bars. It didn't help that the 80080 locomotive owners had decreed that the grate shouldn't be rocked as it wasn't fitted with an ashpan spray.

After pushing the live fire forwards I set to with the bent dart and pricker to clear the back while trying not to damage the finger bars. Not an easy job but as you can just make out they are coming clean - I took this shot during a well-needed break in the activities. I then had to rake the live fire back again to cover the grate and have a go at the front bars which fortunately weren't too bad.

When this was done I still had the smokebox to empty but as we were not on the pit at least I didn't have the ashpan to clean.

A real labour of love.