Weds 4th / Thurs 5th - The 4867 and 25451 Show

There are other important activities going on of course, but the post title very much indicates the sheer amount of effort going into the twin refurbishments of TSO 4867 and SK 25451. Both days had good attendances. I forgot to note the number for Wednesday; Thursday had 22 attending.

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Wednesday

Many thanks to Gerry for another excellent set of photos.

Neil and Simon are building the floor supports at the north end of 4867.

Time for a breather!

Ben, Trevor and Dave are setting up wall supports in 4867 for new veneer panelling.

Nick is cutting out and removing redundant tubing that held the wiring used for the electric heating system.

Nick carefully preparing sheetmetal for a new underwindow replacement.

Now in place, Bob secures it ready for Nick to spot weld.

Now spot welded and ready for a full weld.

Bob is now in the Barn and drilling holes ready for securing the toilet compartent windowframe on the Cotswold side of TSO 4406.

Ken is still installing new pipework for the steam heating under the GW Inspection Saloon.

Laura and Eve are re-covering more bench seating.

A number of bench seats have been re-covered for SK 24949. Simon and Neil carefully take the latest one down the stairs ready for reinstating. 24949 is in Rake 3 on the north side of the yard.

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Thursday

Black 5 45110 appeared with Rake 2 on a photo charter. As such the train did a number of reverses and passes through the station before eventually heading off to Toddington. 

On Friday 45110 is in use for the special Fire and Drive and on Saturday the Fireworks train. After that? The return to Carnforth must be imminent.

Alan has been making more good progress with 4406's south end rebuild. A new length of z bar has been welded in.

One of the two remaining coach end halves that we purchased some time ago from South Devon Railway Engineering. This half will be used to cover the Malvern side of the connection.

At this point it is worth mentioning that two members of our Indoor Gang, Alan and Geoff, were once again doing various internal repairs to Rake 3 coaches. Roger, the third member and also the Works H & S rep, was at Toddington at an H & S meeting so was unable to take any photos.

Phil is still working on cleaning up the supply of electrical connection components.

A view of the substantial framework at the north end of 4867 that was set up by Neil and Simon on Wednesday.

The outer side pieces of internal window framing for 4867 had a rough edge which initially we have ignored. This is now being rectified and made smooth by a combination of pad sanding being done by Phil, ......

[Photo : Gerry]  .........  followed by careful hand sanding by myself to finish them off. I restained two completed bits and they now look so much better. There are a few to go but we will persevere and get the batch done.

The remainder of the post covers more activities with 25451, beginning with Tim removing the flatting dust. The extension allows gutter to solebar vacuuming.

Graham was back after a nice holiday in North Norfolk and immediately began hand flatting the first top coat on the Malvern side. Again the quality of Alex's painting was so good that this was all that was necessary.

At the other end of the panel Tony was doing the same, while up on the steps Richard was top coating the remaining undercoated windowframes.

Ainsley went round and, where able, cleaned and checked the working of the hinge grease nipples. The top parts were wrapped in tape to prevent any further paint, and eventually varnish, covering them.

Tony has moved on to the upper panels.

The final window to top coat was the Malvern side toilet compartment. Some of the door and doorframe sides still need top coat.

Tim cleans up the inner parts of the buffer. No paint on these please, just some grease.

Stu stops by to chat to Graham, who was by now well into the second crimson top coat on the Cotswold side.

The Malvern side with all windows top coated and the second top coat on much of the bottom crimson section.

The south end almost completed. Tim had put a second top coat on the door and Hammerited the chequerplate. Just the rain cover to fit and paint, and the relevant signwriting to be done.

Tuesday 3rd - A busy day and an Autumn Gala

A busy day, starting off with Paul cleaning up another heavy bolt from the Shark Ballast Plough van and making good use of the existing parts wherever possible.

[Photo : Paul E] The cleaned up and repainted planks are now going back on the Cotswold side of the van.

[Photo : Paul E]  Derek redrilling the holes in the top support. Lovely bit of blue sky!

[Photo : Paul E]

[Photo : Paul E]  Dave was back to giving TSO 3961 an overall sanding.

[Photo : Alex]  The Malvern side of SK 25451 with the first top coat on the main cream and crimson sections done by Alex on Saturday.

Stu had previously done a first rate job with the first coat of crimson on the Cotswold side and as such we reverted to hand flatting with 240 paper, though it hardly needed it. A general keying would have been good enough, but keeping in with our new regime we soldiered on.

While Stu, David and I dealt with the crimson panel, Ainsley cleared the windows of any paint drips.

This was followed with the flatting of the cream panels between the windows, and the doors and end sections.

On the Malvern side there are still windows to top coat, so Ainsley got going with those.

That south connection door will be ready eventually. It will need a second top coat so Roger carefully keyed it. He then completed most of the other internal connection painting, leaving just the chequerplate to paint with Hammerite.

David completed the internal connection painting at the north end, including the chequerplate.

Phil was busy making more patresses for mounting electrical connections. The belt sander nicely completes the job. They were later taken to the Paintshop trestles where Keith primed them ready for painting. 

The seemingly endless job creating new hardwood internal window frames for TSO 4867 continues with Robert and Chris steadily producing another batch.

A good batch dyed, fully varnished and ready for collection on Wednesday. The most recent ones have been coated with preservative and await dyeing.

Tony is removing old cracked paint and filler around this Cotswold side window on 4867.

Not sure where this sandwich board is destined or what will be signwritten on it, but Keith is painting it with matt black as requested by Alex.

While in Upholstery and making use of their nice clean work table to cut more rag, Chris appeared and placed this special display stand he had made at home.

In answer to my question about what it was for, he quickly provided the answer.

Rose later appeared and set it up completely with six spectacle cases. What a brilliant idea! 

Apparently a display stand has been made for the keytags but we couldn't find it. It may of course have already been taken to one of the shops.

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A very enjoyable day in the Forest

The weekend of 31st Oct/1st November saw the excellent FODR Autumn Gala take place. Everything ran to time and with two guest engines as well as their existing active steam fleet, double heading, a short goods train, and brake van rides, there was a lot of action to enjoy.

Pam and I went down there on Saturday. There was plenty to see while we were sat in the first train of the day hauled by the WD Saddletank 152 "Rennes", waiting to depart Norchard Low Level and go to Lydney Junction. The guest engines, the Standard 4 tank 80078 and the LNWR Webb Coal Tank 1054 (BR number 58926), were at the shed being prepared for the day's running.

Perfectly timed for us, the Coal Tank passed by and very obligingly stopped almost opposite our window. It would be coupling on to Set 2 after we had gone.

At Lydney Junction the GW Pannier Tank 9681 was waiting for us as it would be doubleheading the train back to Norchard and on to Parkend.

192 runs round the train ready to couple up.

Have travelled to Parkend and back, Pam and I had  a cup of tea and then a good look around the excellent museum. There are two paintings in there I would love to own, a pannier tank with a short goods train crossing the river bridge at Lower Lydbrook and Rob Rowland's excellent portrayal of a crimson and cream GW Railcar crossing Lydbrook Viaduct. 

During the main running period Norchard Low Level becomes the home of the brake van rides, all included in the cost of the gala entry fee.  As with last year when we came down for the Autumn Gala, the Saddletank "Uskmouth 1" was in charge and provided a very enjoyable interlude to the main train running. 

It was a decent length ride, running almost as far as Middle Forge where the low level and high level lines meet.

The guard displays the green flag on the return to Low Level. We enjoyed the ride so much that we happily had another run later on, and would even have had a third had time permitted.

With our tour of the museum and lunch break we missed travelling on the trains being hauled by 80078 and 1054. It was however great to see them in action. 80078 starts off from High Level with the train for Parkend.

9681 and 152 pull away from High Level with the northbound goods train.

We watched "Uskmouth 1" leaving with another brakevan trip and on its return had our second run on board. It proved to be a very popular feature in the gala and nearly always had a steady number of passengers.

Our final run to Parkend was behind 152. We could have waited there for the next train which was doubleheaded by 80078 and 1054, but it would have been a very long wait. We had anyway had enough for the day so remained on the train and on return to Norchard we set off for home.

We will certainly be back for next year's Autumn Gala.