Tuesday 14th - Mucky job

 On a Tuesday the first one in is usually Chris, followed at about 7.30 by Robert, Maurice, Scouse and myself. Another few minutes and Phil and Stu arrive.

It's now 8.00 and we're enjoying our early teas, coffees and a chat. 

Moving on, others have arrived and we're now busy with our respective jobs. Robert carefully removes the marked sections of the new door liner for BSK 35308.

Chris offers up the liner to assess the fit. He had earlier cleaned up the inset frame with a grinder.

Ian top coats the back of the holder to go on the Weed Spraying wagon. This will be for the operating instructions and other information.

Maurice undercoats the roof battens for the Mink D van. I expect by now the roof canvas will be being ordered.

More top coating along the top of one of the door frames.

Scouse gives the surrounding floor a good vacuuming.

It was great to see Keith again following his health issue. It will probably be a while before he can return to the team, but he hopes to help with the Works monitoring during the Diesel Gala in just over a week's time.

On to SO 4798, beginning with Stu working on the filler that I added around the budget lock receptacle on Saturday.

He also top coated the skirting in the north vestibule.

The side of the doorframe now looking complete with a coat of GW Cream covering the sanded filler and a smart looking skirting in the vestibule. There can't be many jobs left to do inside 4798 now.

With the external varnishing complete, I reattached the last two grab handles. Following Phil's preparation work last week the bolts went in very easily. Richard now adds Gloss Black to the bolt heads on all six handles.

And now the mucky job of the day. We only occasionally paint bogies as usually they are too filthy and thus take a lot of initial cleaning, and as you can only paint what you can access, it is in effect a purely cosmetic exercise.  In this instance we felt that as this had become a very special coach, we would make this the exception.

David worked on the Cotswold side north end bogie. Wire brushing and scraping to remove dirt and loose paint. Power brushing creates too much dust so that was most definitely not an option, especially with all that lovely new paintwork.

Ian got cracking on the south bogie on the same side. I later joined him and as such this bit was the first to be almost completed, the almost being that a final check would be made on Thursday and further cleaning done if necessary. 

Great reflections in the varnish.

Following on from all his other jobs Richard got cracking at the south end on the Malvern side.

It's beginning to look good. 

After all his work Stu took on the remaining bogie at the north end of the Malvern side and did a very good job. There will be more to do, but as with Richard's bogie it was a good start.

Having done as much as much as we could currently achieve on the south bogie, Ian and I joined David.

The south bogie Cotswold side at the end of the day, with the floor swept and washed.

If all is ok on Thursday we will begin painting with Black MIO, which is very hard wearing.

It's 5.40 and having had our end of day refreshment Robert is the first to leave. The rest of us weren't much later leaving.

Monday 13th - Going Bionic

 Only 18°C in the morning, so we could clean in comfort. First up a new sight - Nigel had decided to take up Ghostbusting (and very welcome too).

Next I caught Nigel, Kath and Jane all working in the same carriage.

And finally new essential equipment for the train - fire beaters!

And Going Bionic? We already have one team member with a replacement hip and another with a replacement knee. In the queue we have another hip and two knees!

The rest of the team today was Chris, David, Greg, John M, John S, Lynn, Peter, Roger C, Steve, Tim and Val.

Saturday 11th - Finished? Not quite.

Apologies for the lengthy gap again with the blog posts. Gerry must still be away and a number of us didn't go in on both Wednesday and Thursday because of the heat.

Just when you think that our work on this coach must be about finished, BSK 35308 still keeps coming up with more to be repaired. Robert and Chris are sorting out a door liner for the Cotswold side luggage compartment.

Ken was later drilling holes for refitting the capping strip.

Some work will need to be done on the opposite liner as well.

In the Barn James is investigating the roof at the north end of SK 25451.

With the gutter removed the extent of the corrosion really shows up. The next section of gutter will also need to be taken off. Part of the passcomm equipment may also need removing if the corrosion has extended below the roof level, which seems likely judging by that vertical area with the paint removed.

General views of the roof indicate plenty of work needed to get this cleaned up and repainted.

Simon continues the boxing in of the plumbing in the GW Inspection Saloon's kitchen.

The part that Neil was recently working on.

The other end of the wall unit, and below Simon with what looks to be the cover for this.

It's Railway Headboard Weekend with a variety of headboards on display over the two days.  "The Cornishman" headboard looks great on "Betton Grange".

The Royal headboard on 3850.

Taking a break in the shade of the Paintshop and toilet block, and watching the trains.

Chris videos "The Cornishman" as it departs for Toddington.

[Photo : Paul W]  Phil rescued and released a dragonfly which had flown into the Coffee Pot Cafe. 

I was so busy chatting to Laura and Carol that I forgot to ask what they were making - bookmarks or keyrings, although Laura was using the cardboard as a template.

A nice row of the new doorstops.

Plenty of painting on the trestles for Ian. Derek's planks for more Shark repairs are being undercoated, and below a top coat of Exec Light Grey on the operating manual box for the Weed Spraying wagon.

There were also grab handles to paint black.

Inside the Mink D van Maurice continues the ceiling undercoating.

Paul prepares the primed roof battens for the various parts of the van, drilling the screw holes where needed and labelling each according to location.

Alex prepares his Mink D templates with French chalk ready to add the number and weight information to the Malvern side.

Now that mystery bit of cut wood which was on the trestles for quite a while. As requested it had been primed, undercoated and painted black. It turned out to be a replacement for one of the lifting sections of the Cotswold side footboard on the LMS Brakevan.

Now on the SO 4798 and the final day of varnishing. There were two remaining sections, one on each side.

Graham started on the top part, and once well enough ahead, was joined by Alex on the lower part.

Now for the Malvern side, with the same actions as the Cotswold side. Alex had other things planned but I am very grateful for his help today.

Graham then added a second coat to both sides of the connection at the south end. 

Yippee, that's it! 

We've finished the main external repaint.

Or so we thought.

On Thursday the Indoor Gang had added the fittings to the second of the two new cupboards in the central vestibule. I gave the tops and newly added side beading another coat of varnish.

A new and lengthy task is to clean up as much as possible the outer faces of the bogies and give each a coat of black MIO. Ian and Graham went round and vacuumed up all the dust, which made a surprising difference and made the bogies look a lot better than we thought would be the case.

As we were leaving the Paintshop to go up to the Mess Room, Alex spotted some scotch brite marks on the lower section of the north end door and the corner. The upper section looked ok, but somehow the lower had been missed. Alex quickly knocked up a thinned batch of varnish and soon sorted it out.

The heat waves have certainly held up the completion of SO 4798. By now we had hoped to have had all the Paintshop work finished and the coach in the Barn. With an official tour of the Works next Saturday and the Diesel Gala the weekend after that, it looks as though we will have to postpone the shunt for a couple of weeks. However it will create a very fine display for both the tour and our Gala visitors. The bogie clean up and painting will also be a lot easier to do here.

The End of Day Tea Club was in for another treat. There was a Fish ad Chip Special running this evening, so Rose nipped along to the station where all the cooking was taking place in the yard and ordered the portions. The Mess Room was still too warm for comfort, so we relocated to the Goods Office garden and sat under the oak tree. This time we had all the necessary condiments.

And then there was the view.