Tuesday 25th - Another major push

 Another brilliant day with a major push to bring some visible change to the paintwork on BSK 34929 and remove some of the still outstanding tatty bits. As with CK 16221 when we recently greyed-up the Cotswold side, it was a very heartening improvement.

 The first things to get sorted out were the corridor connections. Roger looked after the north end, cleaning up the rusty parts and then giving an overall coating of red oxide where required.

 Maurice had considerably more rusty parts at the south end to clean up.

 By the end of the day Roger had done a very thorough job, including painting the connection rubber in matt black and priming the new wood frame for the sliding door.

 

The south end at the end of the day showing the improvements made by Maurice.. 

Even in just this state, both ends already look so much better. All the oxided parts at both ends will be given a coating of Dark Grey undercoat (this was indicated on our white board for anyone from the team in the next day). The new door into the disabled compartment also needs more Executive Light Grey.

With a lot of work still to be done to get all the doors and missing door frame capping strips back in place, we are not as yet intending to do any further painting on the body sides. 

However there was nothing to prevent us from top coating the window frames in Maroon. 

Phil looked after the Malvern side, ......................

............... while Richard took care of the Cotswold side. There are still window frames to do, but both Phil and Richard made very good progress, and what with the ends in a better state, there is a distinct sense of improvement all round.

The shelves for the toilet compartment and the final interior door stop were completed with top coat. With this completed all the compartment doors, the toilet door and toilet fittings, and the guards internal door are ready to be refitted - the compartment doors of course when all the seating has been fitted.

Moving into the Workshop and CK 16221, Derek was back working inside the end vestibules. At the north end new wood blocks are going in which will provide the support for the new panelling when that is eventually put up. He will also be working on the cupboard doors inside the vestibules.

One of the things that Derek pointed out was the amount of rusty surface on the back of the bodysides. Alan did a very useful job cleaning up the surface inside the south end of the corridor.

He then began coating the surface with red oxide, a great improvement. This will continue along the whole corridor. A check will be made on the compartment side as far as possible.

Meanwhile Bob tackled the cleaning up of another of 16221's aluminium doors. With the door face thoughly cleaned up and the old paint removed, Bob had a go at some of the broken screws on the inside, but with the infamous bonding of aluminium with steel, efforts came to nought. The Door Team have their usual way around the problem.

 With the door turned back over a base coat of undercoat Light Grey was given so that, when the door is eventually mounted, the Painting Team will have a nice clean surface to work on.

In the Upholstery Workshop Dave was measuring up another foam section for a seat from TSO 5042.

The electric bread saw makes a lovely clean job of cutting the foam to size.

It was nice to see Kevin in today. He had been asked by the DMU group to sort out and remove a number of Network South East EMU doors that had been previously loaded on board. The removed doors were put back in our storage area.

Taking a break from top coating 34929's window frame, Richard painted 10 chocs/scotches with "C & W" or "C + W" on both sides (the eleventh and first in line was mine). These will now be transferred to the Barn and hung up on the hooks.

With better weather the chance to enjoy lunch outside again and watch the returning train pass by.

The usual photographic indulgence with our passing trains again, and once again very much enjoying that Carmine & Cream coach with the black livery of Dinmore Manor. It is good to see better numbers on the trains now that our passengers can once again begin their journeys from Cheltenham or Broadway, in addition to Toddington.