2021 Round up

Happy new year to all our followers! I think one or two hardy souls are in today, but no bloggers, so now is a good chance to review what we managed to achieve over the last year. Considering the first 3 months of 2021 we were on Covid lockdown, looking back we accomplished rather a lot. I thought a look through the highlights was in order, so here we go.

BSKD 34929

This has been in the works since 2017, a very long running project. It began the year still in the workshop where, although the main body sides were in undercoat, there was still a lot of work to do, particularly on the doors:

At times it has been an incredibly frustrating job for the door team, but here we are nearly finished:

 Hopefully it should leave the paintshop in the first week or two of January, a lift up on the jacks and then finally outshopped.

P'way BG 81049

This was the first job for the painting team when we returned to work after the lockdown. It was looking very shabby after being sat outside blasted by the sun for 10 years, that paint was maroon when it was fresh on...

Just a few short weeks later and it was totally transformed, after a lot of filling and sanding we went for Crimson and Cream livery, which went down very well:

With a budget of nothing we thought this was a good use of some old tins of crimson paint we had in stock.

TSO 5042

This was the upholstery team's main project this year, they steadily worked their way through reupholstering the whole of the interior of this carriage. It looks superb:

GWR Mink A 124589 rebuild

Wagons are always an important part of what we do, we didn't stop being Carriage and Wagon just because of some pesky pandemic. It also helped that private owner funds to sponsor work were forthcoming. So we picked this GWR van to extract out of the sidings, it was looking rather sad:

Initial thoughts were a light overhaul and repairs, but as is often the case, once you start looking closely, you end up going a bit further than expected:

That was just after shot-blasting. And now very nearly finished after a full rebuild led by Richard:

TK 24006

Progress has been good on this coach despite it not being in the works. A huge amount of wooden panelling and trim has been dismantled, cleaned up and varnished ready for refitting:

While inside a lot of the interior has been cleaned up, ceilings painted and walls varnished:

16221

With most of the metal work done on this coach it was over to the painting and prep team to make the remarkably dented sides presentable:

Eventually we were happy and finally covered up the hotchpotch of blue and grey with an all over light grey undercoat:

Meanwhile the interior rebuild has begun:

Outdoor coach repaints

When the time came for a return to normal operations using our open carriages in late summer, the open rake had been sat out of use in a south facing siding for 2 years, and it showed. So once again we swarmed over them sat where they were in the yard repainting the lower chocolate panels which suffer most in the sun:

Well worth the effort and made the whole rake look much more presentable.

GWR Open 143760

Another wagon, this time a 5 1/2 plank Open. It was originally sent to Toddington in 2019 for some brake rigging repairs which were more easily done using the facilities at Toddington. That work got disrupted with the pandemic, but was resumed during the summer. While it was there, a variety of people from several different departments decided to give it a cosmetic overhaul too, to replace a couple of rotting planks and turn the fading BR bauxite to the full GWR grey livery with all the trimmings:

Bogie overhauls

It's sometimes difficult for those not directly involved to keep up with what goes on on the jack road, one pair of bogies look much like another and sometimes a coach can come in, have a bogie swap and be out before a blogger can even capture it! One of the major activities for the dirty gang during the Autumn though was the overhaul of the pair of bogies formerly under the Loco department mess coach "Tina" for TSO 4763:

Which was duly completed in December, along with a few minor body repairs while it was in:

DMU Cab metal work repairs

A nice challenge for the metal work team this year was to rebuild one corner of Class 117 DMBS 51360. At some point in its life it had had a bit of a dent and the BR solution was apparently to fill it with filler. We could empathise with that, but the repair was now badly failing, so time to do the job properly:

Dogfishes

A less nice challenge for them was repairing our ballast train, several dogfish required attention to corrosion in the hoppers. It was a very difficult access job as you can see!

The other major job on these was to dismantle and inspect the drawgear, also somewhat awkward job:

Gunpowder van 105560

A smaller project was the cosmetic overhaul of the platform side of the gunpowder van, as it was looking very sad, and displayed in a prominent place:

And after, with all plastic vinyl lettering replaced with hand painted:

Queen Mary Brake van 56305

Possibly the highlight of the year was the amazing transformation of the Queen Mary Brake van. This was essential for our plan to once again run a freight train for the 40th anniversary gala. There were several repairs needed as well as a full FTR exam:

As we started, it became apparent that although we could simply patch it up, it would probably be more effective to do a bit more than the minimum. Coupled with a desire to repaint it into its original SR colours, it became quite a project. One of the high points was probably the amazing discovery of the original SR lettering hidden behind the metal cladding applied by BR:

Just 8 weeks later and with something like 1000+ volunteer man hours from a huge number of people within C&W and help from folks in other departments, we did it:

Passengers lucky enough to have a brake van ride could enjoy the fruits of our labour and were very complimentary. This also leads onto...

The return of the goods train!

This was an ambitious aim we set, to run a goods train for the first time in about 4 years. In the intervening years, not only had some of our stock deteriorated, but our FTR requirements were much more stringent. This required us to do full drawbar dismantling and inspections as well as the usual axlebox inspections and brake tests, and fill in lots of paperwork.

The end result was totally worth the effort though:

We managed 10 vehicles in the end which we were rather pleased with, it gives us something to build on for future operations and we were inundated with praise from volunteers and the public alike over the gala weekend.

So there we are, that was quite a lot done really! Hopefully 2022 will be a little less disrupted, and C&W continues to be as varied and interesting as ever!

 

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In Memorium 

 

In 2021 we were very sorry to hear about the passing of John Hughes (in early January) and Derrick O'Brien (in November). Both had been with C&W for many years, with Derrick retiring at the beginning of the year.

 

Retirements

We also said goodbye to Craig, Eddie, Des, David F., Cheryl and Malcolm, all of whom retired from the Works during the year. A hearty Thank You to them all for all their efforts during their time with us. Both Craig and Eddie have already been back to see us, and we hope the others will be able to as well.