Saturday 13th - The next project

With the gala done and dusted and the Queen Mary finished, there was a goods brake van shaped hole in our lives. Happily, today's main excitement (well, for those of us who like wagons it was exciting) was the extraction of the next major wagon project, the GWR Toad. It had briefly come into the works a couple of years ago for work to begin but other priorities came along and it managed to get rather buried in the sidings, necessitating quite a lot of shunting to extract it:

This ran in our goods train in galas up until 2017 when we ceased operating them, but by then it was getting very tired - the quick repaint we gave it way back in 2013 (one of the first vehicles I worked on as a volunteer) would only last so long, and I distinctly remember painting over some suspect wood and moss at the time!

This time the job will be much more substantial. It will have all new timber; floor, sides and roof, and quite a bit of metal replacement as well - around the veranda it's all fairly sound but the lower sides of the cabin are pretty shot. It will of course be properly sign-written this time too, and re-allocated to somewhere more local (research ongoing).

Even though it's just been parked outside the barn for now pending the completion of the Mink which it'll swap places with, Paul got stuck straight in undoing various nuts and bolts:

Meanwhile the Mink edges ever closer to completion with Richard fitting most of the remaining timber roof hoops:

Onto carriages then, and it was heartening to see focus decidedly shift to 16221 for some of the door team. Robert was drilling holes for the top hinge of the south door on the Cotswold side:

And Ainsley was making some adjustments to the door itself:

Later on and it was time for a test hang! Chris stopped by to offer some words of wisdom too:

At the other end George was doing what I think is the last of the filling required here, as later on I saw him grab a tin of dark grey undercoat which felt encouraging:

I think this is the final door requiring work on 34929, Steve was busy checking for sticking points, by the end of the day there was the usual pile of wood shavings after adjustment:

Inside Dave was fitting tables in the compartments:

While Dave was cleaning up brackets for more:

The Malvern side solebar was getting its coat of gloss by Pam

While on the Cotswold side I painted up the works plate and the star indicating the location of the vacuum release cord:

Out in the barn it was decided that today would be a good day to power wash the pair of bogies we've got in at the moment. Obviously this is best done outside, and many hands make light work when it comes to moving them:

I didn't get too close for the pictures!

Paul and Dennis meanwhile were cleaning the windowlene off some of the carriages destined to go into a remarshalled rake for Santa trains:

It must have been a bit tricky for them when their coaches kept being moved around during all the shunting to extract the Toad, a couple were briefly parked in the barn.

Dave was in working on 24006 but I'm afraid I missed him, but I did capture Phil working on some heating control units for it in the workshop:

Upstairs in upholstery the production line for the bubble car is in full flow, John fitting padding to another seat back:

While Jenny was on the sewing machine with the moquette:

Although normal service trains have ceased, entertainment today was provided in the form of a race train to take punters to Cheltenham and back again, plus a fish and chip lunch in the middle of the day to take advantage of the train being in service anyway: