Wednesday 4th/Thursday 5th - Hardest thing about blog postings? Thinking of a title!

A good number in today with the engineers choosing Thursday to come in this week. Some photos of the work done on Wednesday have been included. 

Beginning with the Mink A van and the excellent progress being made. The door planking is being top coated, GW Grey on the one side and black on the reverse. Meanwhile the best quality veneer flooring was put in on Wednesday - the photo cannot quite capture how good it looks in reality.

With the structural refurbishment of four doorways and doors now completed on BSK 34929, the Painting and Prep team can get going with the subsequent filling and eventual painting. A start was made on Tuesday, followed by some good progress on Wednesday. The view is of part of the Malvern side double door entrance. 

The corridor entrance crash pillars at the north end of 34929 had small gaps at their base. Brian, having made some measurements of what was required, now cleans up one of the metal infills.

 A quick check for size - a perfect fit !

 A few minutes welding by Nick and it can now be finished off by the Painting Team.

In case you were wondering, yes, this is Bryan with his long hair of the past year now gone. 

While on the subject of metalworking, off to the Barn to see how Dogfish 993061 is coming along.

As stated previously, these vehicles are very awkward to repair and Gerry is using a short plank to act as an arm rest while cleaning up more holes in the hopper base ready for Nick to weld in new pieces of sheet metal.

(Photo: Gerry)

Repairs already made by Nick can clearly be seen.

Gerry assists Nick as he struggles to get into the best position to do yet another weld.

(Photo: Gerry)

This one was a bit easier to access.

Moving outside with Richards I and II to see the new plate that had been cut out by Nick and rivetted by Richard II at the end of one of the 3rd Rake coaches (sorry - forgot to note which one) - the metal under the wooden disk base of the electrical connection had rotted away. With this in place the plate had a coating of red oxide and the Richards were able to put on a new disk base and reconnect the protruding wires.

On to TSO 5042, also in the yard, and our guess that the Upholstery Team were now just over half way with the seat refurbishment turned out to be correct. The south compartment is now finished and looking really nice.

 

The team have now moved into the north compartment with the missing seats being rebuilt and re-covered. Paul is busy vacuuming the vacated areas.

It can be quite interesting to see what is found either under or within seats. The tickets and plastic knife ended up in the bin, the coins in our donation box and the yellow pencil added to the tub of line marker pencils in the Paintshop.

In the north end vestibule Phil was sorting out the plumbing for the toilet compartment.

While Phil was busy with 5042's plumbing above and in the main access cupboard, Dennis had been busy checking more of the 3rd Rake and highlighted a number of toilet compartment doors that had the remnants of sticky tape firmly adhering to the varnish. I wish there was something better, say like a little receptacle into which a card with "Out of use" could be placed, to indicate when toilet compartments are to be locked out. Hopefully the tape remnants can be removed without damaging the varnish.

Back to the Workshop for a number of different aspects. Firstly Tony is servicing the valve unit from the vacuum cylinder that was taken off CK 16221 last Saturday.

Following on from the repaint of the base undercoat on the Malvern side of 16221 on Tuesday, Jeff (later joined by Bob) applies Madder undercoat to the window frames. There is still some secondary filling to do on this side, but it won't be long now before all that will be left with base preparation of the coach bodywork in its current state will be the north end. More work will obviously appear as missing capping strips are replaced and refurbished doors reinstated. It is still too early to add the lining out tape and begin full livery undercoating.

Bob was busy sanding down an access door from one of the end vestibules in FK 13337 "Gillian" in the 3rd Rake. The door was later stained and then given a coat of varnish. A second coat will be applied before it is returned.

The Winchcombe Station board refurbs are continuing to come along at a steady rate. It's no exaggeration to say that Alex's work has been greatly appreciated by everyone.

A delightful way to preserve the templates for what has been done so far, some of which could be used again, especially as he has his sights set on the other stations.

Despite the on-and-off rain throughout the day we were still dashing out to watch the trains. As P&O departs south with its last train of the day, Foremarke makes a grand sight with its safety valves making themselves well and truly known.