Beginning with the very sad loss of another of our long serving volunteers, Rod Wells. Particularly poignant is that I took several pictures which included Rod only last Thursday (30th July) and later that evening had an email exchange with him. On Sunday evening Rod's son and daughter emailed to say that he died of a heart attack on Saturday 1st August while in Bristol Royal Infirmary. We have lost a keen volunteer and a very good friend.
A tribute to Rod follows at the end of the posting.
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Starting with the Mink D van and the next stage in it refurbishment, covering the roof.
[Photo : Paul E] Maurice cleans up the roof in preparation for the canvas.
[Photo : Paul E] Well done Maurice! It's good to keep everything tidy and the floor swept after the roof cleaning.
[Photo : Paul E] With the large tower borrowed from the Paintshop, Phil helps to lay out the canvas.
Now fully laid out, the canvas will be stuck down on Saturday. The roof battens are also⁹ fully painted and ready to go on.
The painting and varnishing progresses in the Inspection Saloon kitchen. With masking tape and covers in place for protection, Stu primes the ceiling.
The doors received a second coat of varnish, as did the new panel in the corridor.
With SK 25451 now in the Paintshop, the preparation work is in full swing, with Martin and Ian sanding on the Cotswold side.
Ian concentrated on the old paintwork, while Martin sanded the filler.
Ian did a really good job, taking the old paint right down to achieve a very smooth surface.
Dave got going on the Malvern side with general sanding down. This side appears to be a lot better and at the moment is requiring much less filler.
Phil starts on the roof, initially working off the high tower.
The painting of the parking restriction sandwich board for RCS is almost ready. Another coat of paint on the reverse side of the notice board and it will ready for mounting and the advisory notice ready to pin on.
Now a quick resume of the three recently acquired coaches.
TSOs 3961 and 4406 will require considerable work to bring them up to our required standard. No specific plans have been made yet with liveries or in which of our rakes each will go. The refurbishment of SK 25451 and restoration of TSO 4986 will be our current priorities. It would be nice to bring FK 3132 "Mary" back up with a repaint.
TSO 3961 is an early MK 1 built at Eastleigh in 1954. It was acquired by a private owner and arrived in July from Carnforth. The interior doesn't look too bad.
TSO 4406 has been started but this is only because Alan is available to do some metalworking. There is no makers plate on this, but it was built at Swindon in 1957. It was acquired by a private owner and also arrived from Carnforth in July.
BSK 34738 will be in a similar state to the other two. A small area of the heavy tarpaulin was untied and pushed up by Dave to reveal the number. It was built at Wolverton in 1955. It arrive from the GCR in July, purchased for source of spares.
There is also BFK 14026 purchased from the GCR. It was involved in an accident in 2014. It was acquired for spares in March 2026.
Many of us are delighted with the extra BR wagons that have been placed across from the Works. Although I recently featured these I couldn't resist two more photos, one of them this time showing the goods office, and of course that lovely tree.
47105 passes with Rake 2, a lovely sight with both diesel and coaches gleaming. Meanwhile the sky is beginning to cloud up.
It did this on Saturday but nothing happened. Maybe this time we will be lucky.
The pavement outside the end door is looking hopeful and joy oh joy, it's proper rain at last!
And a decent bit too. It eased off and then restarted and became quite heavy. If only it would carry on. Next week we're back to upper 20s again and very dry.
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Rod Wells - a tribute
Rod joined C&W in 2011 and became a member of the Painting and Prep team. He later joined the Door team. During his final year while still working on doors, he still occasionally helped with preparation and painting.
1st December 2011 - my first two photos of Rod for our newly established blog.
9th February 2012 - whatever were Rod and I working on here?
Believed to be in 2012 when we were exploring our drainage system around the Works prior to the start of the work for the Bill Ellsmere building.
18th September 2013 - working on the rivet line.
19th March 2014 - lining out (Rod would eventually invent a tool for marking out the upper and lower line positions on our coaches and create some plastic guides to mark out the individual line bands for both chocolate & cream and maroon coach liveries, all of which are extremely useful and still regularly used).
25th June 2014 - top coating.
11th March 2015 - lining out the Model Railway coach
4th August 2015 - using one of his line gauges on lower triple banded line used for maroon coaches.
17th October 2017 - a number of us worked on this special commission.
25th May 2021 - now a member of the Door team working on a droplight frame.
29th September 2022 - working on a stuck hinge pin on RBr 1675.
12th January 2023 - inspecting a badly closing door on CK 16221.
16th April 2025 - fitting an inner window sill in RBr 1675
15th April 2026 - checking the door closing correctly.
16th July 2026 - Rod receives his certificate for 15 years service from Ian.
30th July 2026 - the last working photo I took of Rod.
RIP Rod - we will miss you.
