Saturday 29th - On schedule

Another busy day with all of us rushing around trying to get everything done that needs to be by March 5th.

The woodwork team have a large assortment of panels to replace in the running rakes, and obviously it would be far too easy if the same components were the same size on every door. Here the marking gauge is out to trim this one to an exact fit:

Also in the woodwork shop today was John doing some turning, we have several perfectly good files and chisels that are without handles, so that was his job today:

The dirty gang's main job for today was to do the bogie change on BCK 21092 now that its wheelsets are back from re-turning. First a quick check on the axleboxes:

And then it was time for the swap itself, F1 style, the aim was to do it all in 2 hours before the RBr had to be back in the air for its gas inspection. So the RBr had to be lowered onto its bogies, shunted out, 21092 brought in, raised off its accommodation bogies, the bogies swapped round, lowered down, and then finally swap the RBr back in again and up.

It all seemed to go like clockwork from where I was spectating, so well done them!

Just Paul on the Mink today, finishing off painting the roof:

Before priming the backs of the second set of doors:

Upholstery too were very busy today, making use of the hoist to lower down some replacement bits for, I think, SK 24929 (it was an SK at any rate)

It was a bit of a squeeze but they managed to get it all in:

Later on they were back inside, as Jenny pointed out, the women working hard while the men stood gossiping! Paul having popped in for a chat:

He too was working hard along with Dennis washing the platform side of the maroon set:

While he was there Paul also sent me a picture of the slip works south of the road bridge, they seem to be coming along well:

Dave was making an enormous racket sanding down various lumps of wood, I couldn't shout load enough to ask whether they were from 24006 or 19195!

And so onto our quick job in the paintshop, Dave started the morning high up with the etch primer on the roof:

Later moving on to the last couple of bits of filling and sanding when Bob took over on the roof, undercoating all along the Malvern side.

Michael undercoated the end, and was very  pleased with the result!

While Pam helped me undercoat the Cotswold side doing window frames:

Such that by the end of the day, it looked like this, all undercoated:

We're on schedule to get this all done by the end of February as I think it's required for the race trains.

It's often said that a gym membership is not required in C&W with all the manual labour involved, but on the other hand trying to stay on a diet is virtually impossible too! As well as Paul's usual excellent supply of cakes it was both Ian's and my birthdays, so no one went hungry at teatime!

Lastly, apologies for the slight delay in posting, but I was out all day yesterday at the great Central Railway's Winter gala, so here's a few pictures of that, the highlights were of coure the busy nature of the whole event with full use of the double track, and the 2 goods trains they had out, the van train and the windcutter mineral opens, very nice!

Thursday 27th - The Race is on

 The title says 'The Race is on, well as March 5th is just around the corner there is much to do. I failed to do a head count today, but all teams were well supported.

Photo by Gerry B.

Rbr 1672 has thrown a few repairs at us, it will be very much needed for the new operating season. Here Bob S. and myself are attending to a fairly straight forward repair to a floor support. We have developed the way we do this, which is a very strong repair.

photo by Gerry B.

On the adjacent road in the barn, Bryan is fitting radiators to BCK 21092.

Meanwhile in the paintshop, Dave is attending to 5042 .......

Dave spent the day vacuuming and then painting etch primer on the Cotswold side of the roof. The Malvern side had been painted by Bob M. on Tuesday. The only remaining area is at the north end between the filler pipes.

Photo by Dave C.

photo by Dave C.

Still with 5042, at the south end Phil completed the preparation work started by Roger on Tuesday, including patching the rain cover over the entrance.+

Photo by Dave C.

Jeff cleaned up most of the north end and made a start on the undercoating.

Bob K. made a start with the freshening up of the three vestibules in 5042, repainting the ceiling and one of the walls in the north end one.

Back to the barn  on 1672 .... Richard is re-fitting the batteries. Richards 1 and 2 very kindly removed them to give us welding access. You will note the woolly hat .... it was very cold in .... The Barn.

Bob S. is re-fitting the step and floors woods.

Outside, a bit of a shunt to get these bogies into the barn for maintenance.

This proved very useful, as 34929  ( you've heard that number somewhere before ) ended up over the pit. This provided a great opportunity to remove a stubborn steam heat connecting elbow, using a fair amount of heat provided by Messrs Oxy and Acetylene.

Back indoors Ken R. is servicing a vacuum brake cylinder.

John V. and Gerry B. seen here moving on with our replacement oil bund storage cage. 

Finally Dave H. doing his favourite job, sanding and preparing all manner of wood mouldings.

Tuesday 25th - The pace hots up

Today it was almost all concentration on TSO 5042 and the Mink A van. With the former, time is of the essence with about 5 weeks left before we restart services on 5th March, so we have to keep the pace up.

As always on a Tuesday Stu and Maurice were in early and, after that early cuppa, were soon busy. We needed to get the rest of the Cotswold side gutter and panel sanded, so Stu got going on that and soon had the job done 

The next job was to wipe the whole side over with thinners. With that done he taped up the lower line.

Some of the side of the roof still needed some scraping. It's very difficult trying to remove all the old bitumen put on by BR. If we had the time we would power brush the whole roof back to bare metal and get rid of it once and for all. It would be a long job and one to do with a full refurb.

With the extra scraping completed, time to brush out the gutter. With that job done I was back with the Henry to vac the floor. Having given the Paintshop a massive clean up last week, I intend to get back to keeping this up on a regular basis as was done pre-Pandemic.

Stu then taped up the top line and joy-oh-joy began undercoating the gutter and top panel. At last the repainting has begun. 

On the Malvern side Richard was doing a number of filling jobs in the doorways, the first at the north end.

With the centre doorway, the outer part of the wood liner had broken off just under the striker plate. The plate itself was fine and secure, but neither of us were happy about the bit below it. So Richard built this back up, initially using the very hard fibre paste (or as we call it, "bridging filler"). The polythene pieces (formerly the covers from food packaging) help to create a smooth and flat surface to the fibre paste, and are easily removed when the paste is dry (this was another excellent invention by Rod when he was in the Painting Team). Richard then topped up with ordinary filler and overall made a very good job of it. The rubber door seal, which was loose at this point, can now be resecured.

Roger worked on the south end, basically giving the whole area a good sanding and adding filler where needed. The connection rain cover will need a bit of patching, but we can use some off-cuts of canvas and bitumastic paint to resolve that. 

There was a projecting screw which needed removing with the angle grinder. Still more work on this end yet with the sliding door and connection to clean up and repaint.

 Bob continued his roof cleaning up along the Malvern side.

Maurice was back up on the roof, patch painting the upper section with the grey etch primer where needed. I think we are just about done now with the roof preparation and can begin undercoating it.

I fill our rag box on the paint table, but it's not long before it all disappears. So a hurried session with the scissors and some old sheets and towel to get the box refilled. Although primarily for painting, the rag appears all over the Works.

Ainsley, Head of the Door Team, was also in as there is a lot of maintenance to do. A new top back panel on this door is being checked for fit. All was well, so the panel was taken back to the Paintshop for varnishing. That lower panel could do with replacing - as stated in a former posting, trying to bring back water stained veneer with sanding down, wood dye and fresh varnish is never very successful.

While at the south end of the rake, a quick look at the embankment repair work being undertaken in the tunnel cutting. Note the rusty rails with no regular service to keep them shiny.

On to other work and Keith is busy priming the new cleaning materials cupboard which will be fitted within the alcove inside the disabled compartment in BSO 9000.

It was then back to varnishing, the priority being the new door back panels which will replace damaged ones in 5042, and the panel Ainsley had been trial fitting earlier on.

 Next the chair from RBr 1675 and the final coat of varnish. It has come up very well.

Just before going home I carefully (the varnish was still tacky) took the chair to Upholstery and placed it next to the one they are currently stripping down.

Good progress was being made with the Mink A van. Paul primes the second set of doors.