Thursday 29th - A quiet day and a retirement

Except for the occasional buzz of a pad sander and the sound of the Workshop fans, it was a relatively quiet day with a number of the usual Thursday gang away.

Following on from the previous posting and Nick's photo from the train of us enjoying our morning tea break, a rear view of the team with just Bob M. and myself missing from the photo.

The number of items from TK 24006 that have now been sanded clean and revarnished is mounting considerably. I moved a pile of completed compartment doorway pillars, panels, and beading onto our storage racks just prior to Jeff starting on this batch. The former will be transferred back to 24006 and stored until it can all be refitted.

In the Woodwork shop Phil checks the doors of this new battery box for fit. It's surprising how these become mixed up and even more surprising that they vary so much, with a set of doors fitting one box well, but not with another.

Both this box and the one residing in the Paintshop were brought into the Workshop for fitting to CK 16221.

Before mounting under the coach Phil fits the fuse box to the back.

Basic fitting is now done with the main cabling pushed through and awaiting the connectors, and of course the batteries. With so much of the coach restoration still remaining it will probably be a while before the latter are mounted inside. Now which set of doors fitted this particular box?!

Derek continues to make good progress with the interior of 16221. New support backing for the south vestibule panelling is gradually being fitted.

Peter from our Friday Maintenance Team was in, checking sink taps and the varied way in which they work and need adjusting. He also came to the rescue when the thin support for one of the display banners outside our 40th Anniversary Photo Exhibition broke after being battered by the wind.

Up on Platform 1 Bob M. continued his tidying up of the roof of the Santa Grotto coach, applying etch primer to the areas from which he had previously removed flaking paint.

Further along the 3rd Rake siding Dennis is topping up the toilet water tanks and making sure all are working as they should be.

It was just Alan in today from the Indoor Gang, here drilling screw holes in the clamped new section of window framing destined for TSO 4867.

Having prepared more sandwich boards, Alex carefully outlines the letters on this board to leave the French chalk pattern underneath the paper.

Just over an hour later, the finishing touches with the lettering now painted on the board.

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Finally we say goodbye and thank you to Malcolm D, one of our long term members of Carriage and Wagon who has recently retired from volunteering. With a backgrouind in mechanical engineering, Malcolm joined the Railway in 1995 and when asked why he joined C&W, his response was that he had finished building his kit car. In his time on the Railway Malcolm has also been a signalman, and was a member of the Meet & Greet Team, a role he particularly enjoyed. We often saw him waving from the train, smartly dressed in jacket, collar and tie, while looking after another visiting party. 

In his time with us he did both metalworking and painting, and for many of us he was synonymous with carriage roof painting. In our regular blog postings there was inevitably a photo captioned "Malcolm on the roof".

We wish him well and hope he will be able to visit us whenever he comes to the Railway.