Thursday 27th - A very full day

 Quite a crowd in today, especially with more of our returning staff swelling the number. It's great to have them back.

Beginning with DMU 51306, the repairs were completed today with Nick, Rex and Gerry doing a great job.

(photo: Nick) The rebuilt corner.

 (photo: Nick)  Gerry cleaned up the welds.

Nick sorts out the location points for the grab rail and completed the remaining welds. The Painting and Prep team will now do their bit on the corner.

(photo: Nick)  Meanwhile Rex fixed the broken hinge on the guards door (think I've got the right door!).

 Also working in the Barn was John V. (great to have him back after 15 months away), completing the rebuild of the remaining door skin for BSK 34929. 

 In the Doors/Woodwork Shop Rod is sorting out internal wood fittings for door 8 off 34929.

In the Paintshop the door for the Cotswold side north end will be trial fitted to identify the location points for the hinge screws on the new bodyside panelling. Trevor prepares the balls and hinge pins.

 With the door mounted and wedged the job was done. 

On Wednesday, all the red oxided parts of both corridor ends had been given a coat of undercoat Dark Grey. Beginning at the north end Bob now coats this in Gloss Black. 

 Within the south end Jeff works on the outside of the new vestibule door for the disabled compartment. All the old masking tape was removed, the surface lightly sanded and a second coat of Executive Light grey painted on. He then completed the job second coating the remaining areas in the mini vestibule that had the same paint.

A lovely job - thanks Jeff!

Following on from the Woodwork Team on Wednesday, in the toilet compartment Phil was graduallly putting back the internal fittings. The wood base sections for the toilet were on the paint trestles and have been fully painted ready for fitting.

The little metal tags to be fitted to the tops of the new seats in the disabled compartment needed cleaning. A very fiddly thumbs and fingers job when done with wire wool because of their small size, until Phil came up with this ingenious solution.

An excellent result!

 

(photo: Nick) On to CK 16221, Rex is working on the removal of the upper section of capping strip from the Malvern side north doorway. 

 All the corroded panelling now cut away.

The new sections of sheet metal in preparation.

Following another bout of sanding down in SK 24006, Dave was now cleaning up beading from above the windows that could be retrieved. A significant number of these will need to be made as most are not in a good state of repair.

A considerable amount of work and general tidying up has already been done in TSO 4867 (our Quainton Road coach). The windows had been made watertight as best as possible on a temporary basis, but now Alan and Geoff are retapping this window frame to do the job properly.

 Having completed their work to install the electrics needed for the new fridge in RBr 1672, Richards I and II were busy repairing the Cotswold side kitchen door after the alumium sheet "window" had dropped off the lazy tongs.

 Richard I proudly wears the hat made by his granddaughter!

 While photograhing Richard, 4270 comes by with one of the Cheltenham trains.

 It's great to have Dennis and Paul back. They put a lot of effort into looking after our 3rd Rake, or as is the case at the moment, our out-of-use coaches that are stabled in this siding because of the pandemic. The position of this siding means that on clear days, coaches sat here are hit by the sun from dawn to dusk which not only affects the paintwork, but could also fade the seats. The more recently upholstered ones have been covered, but another solution is to coat the windows with Windowlene. We will also have nice clean windows when this is eventually removed!

 RMB 1808 with the coating completed.

 Other coaches have been similarly treated. 

 Finally, the metalwork repairs that will be needed to the two Dogfish ballast wagons in the yard. John H. has already replaced the poor condition vacuum hoses with new ones.

 All the step boards also need replacing.