Tuesday 29th - On the Buses

 The plan today was mostly to continue outside, and although some early morning drizzle looked like it might stop play, Stu and Maurice marched out regardless to get cracking on SO 4798:

This coach won't be going into the main rake but it's still looking pretty tired so we thought we'd do the same job we've been doing to the rest.

Dave and I had a different mission today, we went up to Toddington this morning to see Tom from the DMU group about stuff. As it turns out, we picked a great day to go up, as we were there to see the launch of this fantastic collaboration between the railway and Marchant's buses:

Doesn't it look amazing! Well done to Bryony and Catherine in our marketing team, I look forward to seeing it 'in the wild' around Cheltenham over the next few years.

Of course the money shot was to have the real Foremarke Hall passing by its picture on the bus:

Later on there were some staged photos for press purposes but we had retreated back to Winchcombe by then, after watching a couple more trains, and Dave having a look round the new facilities.

When we got back it was all go, Alan had arrived and carried on sanding down the areas he was working on CK 16221 last week, while Phil was sanding and staining more bits of trim for SK 24006:

Also in the workshop Kevin on stores duties:

Upstairs Dave was repairing a seat cushion from an FK, going by the upholstery I think this one's probably from 'Gillian':

Back outside and with filler applied to the dug out rivet line, Dave and Richard joined in with the sanding down:

I was also outside but at the other end of the works, attacking something that's been bugging me for years, the gunpowder van:

Looks a bit sorry for itself doesn't it? the vinyl lettering is all peeling off and exacerbating the paint cracking and peeling too. And of course I rarely need an excuse to get the signwriting brushes out. Today thought it was a case of scraping all the lettering and other loose stuff off and patching with red oxide:

Given how prominently this wagon is displayed in the platform I feel like I need one of those posters BR made; "We know it's looking a bit scruffy, we're working on it!"

Final picture of the day was a walk back down the yard again to see progress on 4798, all in undercoat now and ready for a quick topcoat another day, let's hope the weather holds.