Thursday 29th - Engineering the flavour of the day

In sharp contrast to Tuesday, a very busy day at C&W with some of our engineers coming in today instead of Wednesday to help progress the work to refit the missing doors on RMB 1808. With so many things going on throughout the day and busy with my own tasks, I didn't capture everything, so apologies to anyone I missed out.

Whoa! What's happened here on the completed Cotswold side of RMB 1808?

The missing door is now on one of the Door Team's benches. The lock needed changing, which in this case also meant that a different handle needed to go on. In the circumstances this is a lot easier to accomplish with the door off the coach. 

Trevor is working on the fitting of the handle. Old towels were used to protect the main paintwork when the door had to be turned over.

Some paint repairs will be inevitable because the replacement handle has a smaller base plate - thankfully the cream is easier to put right.

Also on the Cotswold side of 1808, Richard Budd ("Richard II") is fitting the planned new battery charger.

In the Malvern side central doorway Bryan is removing the strenghtening metal bars that has been welded in the hinge locations to the backs of new panelling.

The new brackets to be welded on instead were being manufactured by Rex and Nick.

A zoomed photo of Rex cutting the small triangular sections.

The completed brackets.

Nick then welded three of the brackets where the original metal reinforcements had been for the centre doorway. This is the bottom one, now coated in red oxide.

Rex later moved to the Malvern-side south doorway of 1808 to do the same as Bryan above.

Nick marking out on the large piece of sheet metal. At the time I took the photo without asking what this was for.

However, later on I captured Ken (Reeves) using the anvil to hammer curved ends to a narrow length of sheet metal, so mystery solved. 

Ken is in fact making up the relevant metal parts for the corridor connection rain covers. These are now dangling on the Paintshop hooks and coated in red oxide.

 

Nick tidying up the metalworking area after all that cutting and angle grinding.

Ken (Austin) making more brackets for toilet down pipes.

Moving on to CK 16221 and the refurbishment of the second bogie. Tony is re-attaching the parts of the brake mechanism that were recently cleaned.

Well, that's one lot sorted, and now here's some more to be cleaned.

Axlebox oil pads, cleaned up and drying off in the empty containers of the degreasing fluid. What an excellent and novel way to store them!

At the far end of the Barn Gerry is cleaning up another of the underseat grills from 16221.

After attending an All Departments H & S meeting lasting much of the day, Ainsley spent the last hour or so of the day filling and sanding on the Malvern side of 16221. What better way to wind down than a bit of physical work!

A new battery box for 16221. I sanded down the edges all round as ply can be a bit splintery. It is now ready for priming, undercoat Dark Grey and finally Underframe Black top coat.

Phil was working on the pipework for the toilet compartment of BSK 34929.

SO 4787 was in the Barn for an underframe check up, so a golden opportunity for Bob to remove some flaking bitumen and paint from the roof sides. With bare metal showing, a coat of black etch primer where needed will be followed by some High Roof Build paint that we have left.

Apparently this had been placed on top of the First Aid box in the Paintshop the day before. Paul has just gone on holiday but will no doubt be checking the blog on his phone. Have a good holiday Paul!

Wednesday 28th. ' The wonders of technology'

 I will start by saying I was not there, Des Adams has once again

filled in for me with these great pics. Using 'The wonders of technology' 

he sent them to me ..... so here we go!

16221 Derek continues to make good progress with the South end floor.

This is a bit different, we sign in electronically on this pad or by 'phone app

Sometimes it can be a puzzle, we are all from the analogue age .... Colin and Phil doing some head

scratching. Have they just arrived or are they going home?

Jeff is cutting panels for a toilet compartment.

Dave is screwing the new bespoke battery boxes together, for 1622.

These are now with the painters.

Not my words, but this is Ed actually working. There are 3 pics all slightly different, so he did move.

😂

34929  Colin working on fine detail in the disabled vestibule.

Dave Hancox sanding parts down ready for painting, a tough job but someone has to do it.

16221  North end, Cotswold side, as you can see much work to be done

But it does have a floor to stand on.

A great upholstery team photo

L-R Penny,Dave,Dave, John and Jenny.

1808 in the paintshop, Rod is lining out .... a painstaking job.

1808 sporting a much improved inside paint job, it looks amazing.

Although Des took the pic, he assures me he did help Russ who is seen here 

painting shelving behind the buffet counter.

And finally after all the hard work, a much needed socially distanced tea break. 

This open area of the paintshop is our winter retreat for now.

As I write this, there is talk of a nationwide 4 week lockdown. If this happens then everything will

be on hold ..... maybe except for Blogs! Watch this space!

Many thanks to Des for his photographic excellence.

"The Loos Empty Out Where!?"

Some people are surprised by this, that yes, our loos still empty out onto the track. Inevitably the follow up is then "Why don't you fit retention tanks?" This question comes up on a fairly regular basis, both with my C+W and TTI hats on. Richard Johnson, formerly our Head of Department for nearly 20 years, now our director and chairman, thought it would be a good topic for a blog post, so next time someone asks, we can point them here! Over to Richard:

I thought that I would send this, as I have been involved in some respects in plans to fit controlled emission tanks (CET) on some Mk 1 & Mk 2 coaches which are used on the national network. It is not as easy as it sounds. I have seen a comment or two that we should fit them on the GWR. If it was easy, we would have done so long ago.

The issues:

• Our toilets discharge a great deal of water each time the toilet is flushed. All this water and waste would need to be captured, so the capture tank would need to be at least as big as the current overhead water tanks are. You have seen how big they are. There is no room for such a tank over the bogies, so it would have to fit elsewhere underneath. That would involve complex plumbing and large diameter pipes if we rely on gravity feed.
• The weight of water in the overhead tanks would be transferred to underneath the coach. A gallon of water weighs ten pounds. That would alter the weight distribution of the coach, and could require bogie spring settings to be adjusted to compensate. Our coaches are not designed to carry that amount of weight underneath the solebar.
• Once the capture tanks were full, they would have to be emptied before the overhead tanks could be filled, or we would get overflowing toilets in the train. How would we know when the capture tanks were full without gauges for the guard and TTi to keep an eye on before they lock a toilet out of use?
• On modern trains, there is a vacuum or electric system which sucks the water and waste into a capture tank. You will recall that it is a small amount of blue sterilised  water, not the vast amount which we get when we flush. That allows the capture tank to accommodate much more and remain serviceable for much longer.
• We could replace all our train toilets with a modern stainless steel vacuum or electrically operated system. How much would that cost, and how would it all be powered? Modern systems are upwards of £20k each unfitted. They need a dedicated power source.
• Finally, how would each of the capture tanks be emptied? We could have a complex plumbing system built alongside where the train is parked, so that each tank could be connected to a hose which drained into our site sewerage system. That would overwhelm our current septic tanks at Toddington in a short time, and would be costly to keep pumped out regularly. Whose job would it be to connect that up every night? A trainee TTI perhaps!
• Alternatively, we could fit  some sort of connection to the capture tank, so that a commercial septic tank emptying tanker could connect to each one in turn and pump it out. That would require the tanker to be able to access a road alongside the parked coaches, or for a lengthy hose from each coach to the tanker whilst they are parked at Toddington. How much would that road tanker cost each day, and where would we park the coaches to do it. Would it be the guard or TTI who stayed behind after services to supervise all this and any necessary shunting? It would be a long process to empty eight coaches like this.
• If we were operating more than one train, it would mean evening shunting of the rakes so that each train could be emptied ready for the next day.
• If for any reason the tanks were not emptied at the end of the day, it would potentially put all toilets out of use the next day until they could be emptied. There would need to be a handover system so that a new train crew each day knew that the tanks had been emptied previously.

So, as you can see it is not straightforward. We have looked at it in detail in the past. We have a licence from the Environment Department which specifically permits us to discharge waste onto the track, so we are not in breach of any law in doing so.

Many thanks to Richard for sending that in. So there you go, it really is jolly difficult!

Tuesday 27th - Inside and out

Another month nearly gone, but how we have progressed with RMB 1808 in the past few weeks. Once again the Tuesday concentration was in the Paintshop and working on this coach. However we were far from overcrowded and, as is now the norm, our attendance was low. 

Beginning inside 1808, the counter area is being repainted to refresh everything. We generally use Executive Light Grey for interiors, but Russ felt it would be nice to do this area in GW Cream as this would be brighter.

Everything to be painted has been undercoated. Roger worked on the store cupboard doors and surround, giving it all a light sand down.

Russ meanwhile was re-whitening the shelving.

Returning later to see how they were doing, Roger had made considerable progress with the new top coat, indeed making the area look very much brighter.

There is always an element of tidying up to do, and in this case the inner door frame and door edges needed a second coat of cream top coat. If possible we try to do just a single coat in these places as we have no wish to have doors sticking with too thick a layer of paint.

Maurice also did some tidying up in the south corridor connection, while I began the day repairing some small tears in the connection rain cover with roofing canvas and felt adhesive. The whole canvas will then receive another coating of matt black paint.

It was also time to do some more lining out on the Malvern side of the coach. Richard completed the top yellow line that had been started by Alex on Saturday, before proceeding to the bottom line on the south half, which had been started by Pam.

Sometimes, despite best endeavours, the painting goes awry. In this case the north end large panel had some runs which we felt would be desirable to remove. The paint had been put on a week ago, but gloss can take a while to really harden, especially where there is a run which can remain soft under the skin for quite some time. When this happens sanding will simply pull out the soft paint and create a pit. However we were lucky and Phil, using 150 and 240 paper, was able to sand out almost all the runs as they had hardenend sufficiently. We will leave this panel for a few more days and then re-topcoat it.

On the subject of sanding, it was back to the usual with the CK, though today Alan had my company for a while. Progress is slow as there is still a lot to do.

In the Upholstery Shop, Dave was using some horsehair to pack the recess at the front of this seat base. This would enable the foam to sit properly on the base and not sink at the front.

He then threaded string through the horsehair to secure it to the base.

To do this he was of course using one of Upholstery's famous 12 inch needles. 

We are very polite to our upholsterers when they are using these!

To end the report it just has to be a photo of P&O shuffling by with the damp drizzly atmosphere providing some wonderful steam effects.

I However on the second run down I had to take another shot.

Lots of happy passengers were seen today now that half term is underway. It's all thanks to them that we are able to continue our work.

Monday 26th - A Promise Kept

 It has been many weeks since rake 1 was in Platform 2, to allow us to wash the Cotswold side.  We were on a promise that it would happen today, and it was kept.  So it was 5 of us doing this and another 4 cleaning the Malvern side of rake 2 from Platform 1.  In contrast to last week's sunshine it was showers but rain was not allowed to stop play.  Mind you, with 5 of us it was soon done!  Next week there will only be rake 1 as rake 2 is off to Winchcombe when we are down to 1 train running.  Hopefully there will be an "away team" later in the month.

Thursday 22nd / Saturday 24th - Two for the price of one

A combined report thanks to leaving my "camera" (redundant phone, but brilliant camera and very compact) at the Works yet again! 

Both days were relatively quiet, now becoming very much the norm with the Covid effect. Thursday could have been entitled "Meetings", with Ian spending pretty much the whole day in our former Mess Room, ending with a lengthy C&W Management Meeting.

Beginning with RMB 1808 in the Paintshop, Richard Budd, one of our two electricians, is removing the redundant battery charging unit now that the new one has been installed.

 

Jeff got his wish and was pleased to do the red lettering on the calor gas bottle boxes. 

As often mentioned, highlighting lettering is one of our most popular jobs. Years ago, I remember doing the red instruction plates at either end of the MICA Van - they are a highlighter's dream!

On the Malvern side of 1808 our Door Team were trial fitting the rebuilt centre door. The result was that some more of the new metal panelling will require cutting back and this was duly marked up by Craig for our Metalwork Team.

Trevor and Craig are using the gibbet hoist, which allows them to raise the door safely, and in very small amounts and so enable very accurate locating.

  

A full view of the hoist. Regular readers of the blog will have seen both this, and the larger version for corridor connections, in action many times.

With the major painting now in its final stages, there are lots of small jobs to be done on 1808, including this one being done by Jeff. The south end corridor connection chequer plate receives a coating of silver Hammerite.

Moving into the Workshop where Dave Hancox is cleaning more compartment door runners from CK 16221. Behind him, another pile of corridor heater covers to clean up.

Phil is continuing his cleaning up of the runner for the central door slider.

The changing room sink proves to be very handy for Alan who is busy cleaning up the grab rail brackets for 16221's corridor.

Another clean-up job for 16221, this time with Tony working on the compartment heating controls.

Our ever important H&S records being updated by Ainsley.

My first photo on Saturday was of P&O on the second train of the day. Alex was TTI for the morning on the first train which was hauled by Foremarke Hall.

In the Woodwork Shop Steve checks the alignment of a new section of ceiling framing for the north vestibule of BSK 34929.

Dave was back on 16221's compartment door runners, with the pile of cleaned ones on the left.

Some of the stuff from 16221 was stored in a box van for quite a few years. Unfortunately unbeknown to us the van had developed a leak with the inevitable rusting of some of the contents, including the runners. As such after a good clean up, Dave moved to the Paintshop trestles to apply Hydrate 80 to the runners, which is a very good rust cure.

The second of 16221's bogies is now undergoing refurbishment.

Parts from the bogie's brake mechanism that Ian has removed for cleaning.

In the Barn, Bob and George (on the opposite side) were back on the preparatory work on 16221. We will eventually finish this lengthy stage, but we need to get more of the team working on this to try and speed it up.

With the gusting wind rattling the Barn roller shutters and spoiling our 11-o-clock break, our relocation of the "Mess Room" to the Paintshop took place a bit earlier than planned. It is obviously a lot warmer there too. Thanks go to Pam for once again providing some very tasty biscuits. With just Steve and myself out of the photo, it's easy to see how our numbers have declined, particularly on Saturdays.

Pam's day began with more preparation of the metalwork on the hooks. Initially she cleaned up and de-rusted the two carriage door drain channels (located inside the base of each door) - they were also brushed with Hydrate 80. The remaining metalwork was wiped with thinners, and then everything coated in red oxide.

With his afternoon plans changed because of the increasingly unpleasant weather and thus able to come in, Alex began the top yellow lining out at the Malvern-side south end of 1808.

Now very much a member of the Painting Team, Pam had her first go at lining out and she made a very good job of it. 

You may think that by taping both sides of the line, you cannot fail - I have to say that this isn't always the case.

With the Santa train headboards undercoated during the week by Maurice and Ainsley, Alex gave the cream side of each a top coat.

Alex is now very much in demand for his signwriting skills. He is preparing another board for Broadway.

The backs of the paper strips will have been coated in French chalk. By going over the shapes of the letters, an imprint of them will be made in the underlying chalk, which in turn will provide the template for the final painting.