Saturday 12th - Steady progress and a day on tenterhooks

Another very warm day with a lot of steady progress in the various on-going projects. 

Thanks are due to Richard S. who very kindly took some of the photos and helped fill in for activities that I missed.

Beginning with our Upholstery Team, it was lovely to see Dave D. returning after a very long time away. Hopefully his wife Penny, our wonderful artist and the final member of the team yet to return, will also be back soon.

It was most definitely a case of being very polite to John and Jenny as that 12 inch needle was in use again and my escape was on the other side! The needle is passed through the seat back, each taking a turn to push it through, to generate the necessary indentation. The inside of TSO 5042 is looking very smart again as its reupholstering progresses.

 The first train of the day had P&O in charge with Tina driving.

And in charge of the train was Alex. Having passed his guards theory exam on Monday, today was his practical assessment. 

(Photo: Richard S.) 

Alex seemed very at ease as he passed by and waved. We all waved back, hoping that by the end of the day he would be told he was successful and passed out as a new guard. If this happened he would be the youngest guard on the Railway. All we could do was wait.

With the train gone, work resumed and in the Paintshop Robert J. was back on the Cotswold side north end doorway of BSK 34929 working on the door liner.

With the liner now fitted, it was the door next, sorting out some of the screws on the side that needed bedding in more.

With the Thursday members of the Door Team away, Ainsley put his Painting Team hat back on and decided this would be a good opportunity to get more of the door skin cleaned up and filler put on were needed. It was then given a coat of undercoat Light Grey. At least then we won't have to do the prep work when it is eventually fitted.

On the subject of doors, inside 34929's corridor John A. (Head of our Friday Maintenance Team) was studying the roller mechanism for one of the compartment doors. Was there a problem relating to this with one of our current running coaches?

Pam was adding more varnish where needed in the rebuilt toilet compartment. There are still some fittings (rubbish bin, paper towel holder, small tray) to go back, but overall it now looks very smart in there.

Referring back to Thursday's posting, the heater control that Phil S. had been cleaning up was now back together and will soon be refitted in one 34929's compartments.

Another sequence in the making of some new wall supports for compartment tables - I think these were for 34929. Andy Tu. is cutting the metal bars to the correct length.

An existing support to act as a model with two new bent and cut pieces ready for the next stage.

This is being done by John S, marking out where the hook section is to be cut. These were then cut accordingly and the screw holes drilled.

Success, with four new table supports coated in Silver Hammerite and drying in the Paintshop.

(Photo: Richard S.) 

(Photo: Richard S.)

Moving on to the progress with the Mink Van, Tony, Andy Th. and Ian reinstated the serviced draw gear.

(Photo: Richard S.) 

The next job was the pad and oil examinations of the axleboxes. Each axlebox cover was taken off, the oil drained and the pads removed.

Tony is cleaning the covers in the degreasing fluid.

 Andy Th. meanwhile was cleaning the undersides of the remaining parts of the axleboxes.

Alan was cleaning the axlebox pads, initially with the degreaser and then washed in water, and finally left out to dry in the by now very warm sunshine. The old degreasing fluid containers with the sides cut out make excellent supports.

With the Mink work completed, it was back to the Barn and the servicing of the two bogies currently stabled there. Ian raises the south end of this bogie to extract the first wheelset.

The bogie is now propped up with the wheelset extracted. Various parts of the bogie will be taken off, and both these and the wheelset will be checked over and cleaned up.

This could be last week's photo with George back at the north end of CK 16221 and busy sanding down some new bits of filler that had been put on during the week.

Before returning to varnishing in 34929's toilet compartment, Pam had started her day continuing the varnishing of the beading from SK 24006, which had been started by Phil B.
 

Out in the yard in SK 24006 Dave H. was lightly sanding more of the Weathered Sycamore panelling.

In another compartment co-owner Robert W. was testing the newly sanded veneer with a coat of varnish to see how well it came up. It will need several coats to bring out the best result, but one coat is already making quite a difference. Dave and Robert intend to do up one of the compartments as much as currently possible to see what the coach will look like when we are eventually able to do the full restoration in the Works.

Over now to our currently redundant coaches to see how our 3rd Rake Maintenance team are getting on with the preparation for when we can restore our pre-Covid rake formations. The 5th July big shunt could well be put back if "June 21st" doesn't happen, and the signs are beginning to look this way. "Henry" was in view on board SO 4790, but I wasn't sure where Paul was. Dennis was busy watering up the remaining coaches on the other side of the yard.

However I did find Chris in the process of putting on a new footboard on BSO 9000. With the old rotting board removed, the first job was to redrill the holes in the metal supports to clean out the rubbish.

My job for the day was to finish the wall painting in the guards compartment in P'Way's Mess Coach (BG 81049) by repainting the bottom section. However the floor and all the base of the wall needed a good vacuum first. With quite a bit of time spent as a roving reporter, the job was very much done in bits. However the overall result looks good and, if the floor paint that was found on Thursday is still ok, we will do the floor as well. After that the new coat hooks will be put back and the job will be completed.

Foremarke Hall was back yet again on the second train, returning to Toddington.

********************

And finally towards the end of the day the news we had been waiting for came via Whatsapp on my phone. Alex had passed his assessment and was now a guard. This was really great news!

Was it all that long ago that he started as a trainee TTI? 

We go exactly 6 years down memory lane to June 2015.

25th June 2015 - Claudette, TTI and Guards trainer, brings along two caps for Alex to try on.

27th June 2015 - two days later the new trainee TTI all set to go.

2nd July 2015 - he's very obviously enjoying it all. 

And after all this time, he still hasn't knocked off that hat!