Last weekend we hosted our annual Friends of Black Prince takeover weekend at the North Norfolk Railway. It gives us a great opportunity to spread the word about Black Prince and the work we do to support it, as well as reward our supporters.
We set up the usual format of one day (Saturday) of driver taster sessions, with the following day (Sunday) being the private trains for our driver, fireman and apprentice supporters. The driver tasters sessions allow anyone to turn up and try driving Black Prince at Sheringham for a donation to FoBP. We also ran a blind auction in the run up to the day, with people bidding to take control of No. 92203 for a full light engine round trip. This year we were joined by James, our winning bidder, who thoroughly enjoyed his trip with driver Mark and fireman Nick. All together, the donations and blind auction funds raised nearly £1,000 for FoBP.
The second day should have seen our private trains run, with a brake van ride for apprentice members in the morning followed by two round trips for all supporters on the NNR's dining train, complete with buffet lunch. Unfortunately, when Black Prince arrived back on shed on Saturday evening it was discovered that a tube in the boiler was leaking. The tubes carry hot gases from the firebox to the smokebox and, in doing so, heat the water in the boiler to make steam. When a tube gets old, it can develop cracks or holes which allow water to leak onto the 'wrong' side. This has to be fixed, or the tube blanked off, otherwise the tube could break completely and allow all the water in the boiler to escape violently at high pressure.
Although it has since been possible to remedy the issue, the work required would have taken too long to enable the engine to haul the private trains on Sunday. With no spare engine available we took the decision to request an additional coach be added to the main NNR service set instead, which would be reserved for FoBP supporters and where lunch could be served.
We let everyone know as soon as possible and understand it is disappointing that No. 92203 wasn't available on Sunday. Some supporters still joined us for a few trips behind class 7F No. 53809 in our reserved coach, and we hope everyone who did had an enjoyable time. We are planning to have our annual takeover weekend next year earlier in the season so hopefully it isn't too long a wait for those who couldn't join us last weekend.
Happily, the leaking tube has now been blanked off, allowing Black Prince to re-enter service on the NNR in time to take part in the Norfolk Lights Express trains this winter. Availability permitting, the engine is expected to haul many of the NLE and Santa Special trains over the festive period.