Youngie To The Rescue

Well where do I start what a shift I had this evening by the time I got to Newcastle I was caked in dirt and grease and oil as I got stopped at Goswick just south of Berwick to say a northbound service of ours had a coach that they couldn't release the parking brake on and the nearest fitter was at Darlington so they asked If I could help out my Edinburgh colleague rectify the problem so as I waited for them to get our driver back on his train to give the blockage of the opposite line up and then let the delayed trains in front of me pass so I could then drive up to Cragmill and stop opposite his driving cab the guy had been there an hour to try and find 2 "T" Bars they are upside down T's that can release the parking brakes on that vehicle after a couple of isolating cocks in the pneumatic cupboard have been isolated first I found the problem was an air hose had burst off and our parking brakes on voyagers are held on by springs once air pressure drops below 5 bar so by isolating the cocks and manually releasing these T Bars you can free the brakes on the affected coach I was wondering why my mate had struggled to find them but when you look in the manuel they are totally different to what is underneath the train so being the slightly thinner driver I crawled on my stomach and my back to get under two seperate axles at each end under the floor of the coach and by god there is not my room I lost one of my phones and was horrified as it was the most important one as I wouldn't have worried as much if it was my works one as I would have been out of communicado with the world well not everyone anyway but found it again after ringing it to see the glow, anyway after crawling under the train I located the first one and these T bars and they only pull out around half an inch , I had to tug like mad as it was so stiff but it finally gave way and the brake pads loosened off then I crawled out to then crawl back under at the other end but this one was much tougher I felt like a dentist with my feet on someones shoulders trying to extract a tooth with one foot on the wheel axle and my other foot on the traction motor to give me leverage to tug even harder and after much tugging and yanking with a few expletives coming out it finaly gave way to release the brake pads so I crawled back out totally black now picked up both my torches and manuel and phones and headed back to the cab contacted my control to tell them it was done my mate on the other train spoke to the maintenence team and then I contacted the signaller to say I was ready to carry on to Newcastle I had lost 30 minutes waiting to drive up to his train and lost a further 27 during the procedure but all was well and he was able to get on his way not long after I left but at £140 a minute for delays it soon mounts up anyway the rest of my shift went to plan as I then drove back to Glasgow then back to Edinburgh and the train depot and finished around half midnight so I felt good that I was able to play my part in getting the folks on my mates train on the move again now then I used my GigaTII Pro remote time lapse facilty on my camera and set it up from Glasgow with my empty train back to Edinburgh to see what shots I could get taking on shot every 5 minutes on 15 second exposure and I liked this one best as the rails curve round at Carstairs East towards Auchengray this was at a mere 30mph but due to exposure length looks faster go Big See Ya