Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Carriage & Wagon Dept.

The title is no exaggeration. We had a very busy day with 29 attending and with some aspects demanding extra attention I couldn't get around to see everyone. I didn't even visit Upholstery, and that has to be a first!

So where do we start? The highlight? Why not, we have waited long enough for this.

Today was planned to be the day when a fully painted 1675 would leave the Paintshop for transfer to the Barn.

For a while there was much activity with Jenny, .....

...... Phil and Paul cleaning windows and the window rubber surrounds.

Alex managed to get the stars for the locations of the vacuum cylinder pullstrings painted on the solebar.

Andy and Tony mounted the new brakeblocks all round.

The shunt has started. We push the MICA van up to S0 4798. Stu uses the atlas bar under one of the wheels.

Alex quickly oils up the axleboxes.

With RMB 1876 out of the Barn, the O3 now backs down to 4798.

4798 and the MICA are hauled out into daylight.

Meanwhile, while the O3 is busy elsewhere, outside the Barn a group of us are sweeping up all the residue from the stripping down of the future weed killing vehicle.

Jenny cleans the droplight in FK 13329 while watching all the action.

Now what we have been waiting for. The O3 steadily hauls 1675 through the Barn ........

........ and out into the daylight. Bob looks on intently as the coach rolls by. A lot of the painting and varnishing was done by him.

Bob, Sally, Laura, Dave, Alex, Phil, Jenny, and in the distance, Pat watch as the points are changed and 1675 is slowly propelled back towards the Barn on the jack road.

Home, and dry - literally! Thank goodness it was a dry day

I may not have been to Upholstery, but I did catch Laura and Sally in BCK 21092, sitting on the second of the seats that needs reupholstering. As you will have seen in the previous postings, the first one is being done in the lovely Silver Horsechestnut Leaf moquette.

They had gone over to check the size of the side panels of the seat currently being done and the correct angle of the attached arm rests.

The shunt continues to sort out and locate the remaining vehicles with all five in the current consist as it passes.

The southbound service train hauled by Foremarke Hall passes with plenty for the passengers to see.

The Barn sidelights reflect in the varnish.

"Missed a bit!"

John, with the jack controller in his hand, watches as the coach body steadily rises. In the foreground is the door gibbet.

With no coach in the Paintshop until RMB 1876 has had its metalwork repairs completed, we have time available to finish what we started last year on the Model Railway TPO. Phil tapes up in preparation to complete some of the remaining lining out.

We can also start on the repainting of the Discovery Coach which is now looking very tired. It's still lovely inside with all the displays to see.

Dave and Bob make a good start sanding and digging out lifting paint and filler.

After lunch Bob makes a start on varnishing, something we need to do to stop the paint fading.

The yellow bands on this section had already been done. With these taped up Phil now paints on the black gloss.

The sanding and digging out continue with Dave, and now Pam, John and his grandson also helping. Pam added Kurust to the rusting parts and I later covered all diggings with green primer

We made good progress with the Model Railway TPO. In the distance Stu chats to Bob now well stuck into the varnishing

With the lines completed on the left section, Phil tapes up the bottom line on the unopened central door. Later in the afternoon I got stuck into the varnishing. The job is by no means finished but it is very satisfying knowing it should eventually be done. So much depends on the weather - we were lucky today as thankfully the possible light rain never appeared. Next week it will probably be too hot if the good weather continues.

With 3850 waiting in Platform 2, Foremarke Hall passes with the last steam hauled Cheltenham train for the day.

In the Woodwork shop Kevin is gradually moving all the many boxes of screws into the new multi-drawered unit. There is quite a bit of sorting out and rearranging to do with the extra bits of equipment that have been either donated or retrieved from the old Building Services workshop.

[Both photos : Robert] Chris uses calibration instruments to set new blades in the planer thicknesser and then Simon tries a piece of wood.

On to SO 4798 where Pat continues his sanding and filling from Wednesday, both hand and pad sanding.

George returning from holiday progresses his sanding on the Malvern side.

Simon cuts two new thresholds for doorways on 4798.

Robert, having carefully set the Wadkin saw to the required width, cuts a piece of cedar that will form part of the floor supports for one of the toilet compartments in 4798.