Thursday 15th - Quite a variety of things going on

Not sure what's happened to Nick and Wednesday's blog, but there'll be a log jam before long with all the activity we have! So here's Thursday, Wednesday may or may not follow... Ed. Edit - it's appeared! Carry on scrolling... 

I find one of the hardest things about doing the blog is thinking of a suitable title - sometimes one just pops up, while at other times, with the report completed, it's a struggle trying to come up with anything.

It was a very pleasant day weather wise, and an equally pleasant one inside the Works with quite a variety of things going on. Ah, there we are - the title resolved!

Beginning in the Paintshop, for much of the day it was almost deserted. So far the Painting Team's resurrected fourth day has remained very quiet and for most of the day it was just Richard and Ainsley, with Rod and I occasionally in for various things, and Russ, Alan and Tony in to look at the new Covid protection screen that the latter two had installed in the counter area of RMB 1808.

 

Making the most noise, and even that wasn't much, was Richard Bates (aka Richard I) who is fitting a new battery charger to 1808.

The new cable can be seen running from left to right under the sole bar.

 

  

Now on the Cotswold side of the coach, attaching more cable, this time to the side of the battery box.
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The old unit that is being replaced.

 

 

Remaining with things electrical, Ainsley is repairing the back of the main battery box cover from the Malvern side of 1808. The original cross-spars have been replaced by two new ones made by our Woodwork Team the previous day. 

Both covers have been fully painted up and are now ready to be reinstated.

In the Workshop Trevor is busy attaching the door pull to the missing central door for the Malvern side of 1808.

 

Having trial fitted the door pull, he has now removed it to enable the matching up of the newly varnished back panel. The door pull will partly cover the raw edge at the top of the panel, so needs to be the final fitting.

 

At the end of the day, Rod Wells took this photo of the rebuilt back of the door.

 

 

 

The final photo of 1808 with Ainsley finishing his tidying up of the north end door threshold on the Malvern side.

 

 

Time for the 1100 break with our, we hope temporary, Mess Room "window" open to the warm day outside. There are donuts and fruit pies (the cherry ones were very nice) on that mini trestle.

With it's increased priority, as you can imagine, there is a lot going on with respect to CK 16221.

Phil is cleaning up the runner for what has to be the mid corridor slider (it's straight, not curved) that divides the First and Second class sections of the coach.

 

With the runner dismantled and cleaned, Phil is greasing and  relocating the ball bearings.

 

 

 

A zoomed photo of Geoff marking up some beading to fill a missing section of window frame edging in 16221's corridor. Both this and others that were cut were later varnished.

The Painting Team have been so busy with 1808 that we have only been giving the CK an occasional bit of attention recently. This of course has to change, though there is only so far that we can go with the exterior as there is still an amount of structural work remaining. The aim at present is to get the body sides as far as possible "greyed up" and at least some of the windows into Undercoat Cream. 

 

Rod and I continued the fine sanding and finishing of the filler and areas of red oxide. As expected more areas needing filler were found, in particular around the window frames.

 

 

 

 

 

John working on the bogie from 16221. The centre bolster has been extracted and awaits cleaning up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A closer view of the bolster.

 

 

 

 

In one of the compartments in 16221, a collection of heating units with refurbished control valves fitted.

They might be in the siding awaiting the day we can run them again, but we are taking great care of our precious coaches that have been put out of business by this wretched pandemic.

Paul was once again busy with the vacuum cleaner keeping the dust and dead flies at bay.

 

 

 

The sad sight of FO 3132 "Mary" with the seat cushions upturned to help prevent fading. 

Another photo taken by Rod Wells, this time of SO 4798 at the end of the redundant coaches rake. This is likely to be the next one in for a quick tidy up and repaint. The body sides are looking distinctly tired despite having had a quick repaint not that long ago. Some of the lino (now termed marmoleum) will probably be replaced in the vestibules as that is very old and now cracking up.

No trains on Thursdays, but the lovely warm Autumn day more than made up for it.