Thursday 17th - A Day at the Races

 It was a relatively quiet day in the works, with several folks, including me later on, working on the race trains.

First job of the day was some last minute cleaning on the third rake, Dave and Paul (who I missed, sorry!) on duty:

The rake had been moved to Platform 2 ready to be taken up to Broadway at some point during the morning.

The rumble of the Cl.47 was heard coming to collect it at about 10am, along with a welcome sight, the bubblecar!

Which was delivered to the C&W sidings:

So yes, this will be our next project in the paintshop. It's not finished inside, and we won't be touching that, we're purely doing an external paint job. As such, it shouldn't take us too long, a light rub down and straight to topcoat in most places.

Once that was done, the diesel hooked up to the third rake, and awaited the passing of the race trains proper:

As indeed did we, a carefully timed tea-break allowed us to watch both Foremarke:

And P&O:

Steam by. After the disastrous attempt to steam on just ovoids last weekend, I believe they were on a mix of Ffos, Shotton and ovoids this week, which seemed to go better.

Paul watches with pleasure as the third rake then departed:

Winchcombe is now 24 carriages lighter than it was 2 weeks ago!

A little later Foremarke comes back empty, on my way to see progress on the GPV:

Where Dave had moved to, along with Jeff, sanding off the old plastic lettering:

Out in the yard the indoor gang carried on with window trim for 24006, Roger and Alan inside:

And Geoff was on back and forth to the pillar drill:

Little activty inside the workshops themselves today; in the barn Phil carried on the dismantlement of 1675:

In the workshop Dave and Phil were working on the toilet pipe access doors on the CK. Here loosening a collection of very stiff hinges:

While I was in the echo-y empty paintshop finishing the C&W gala open signs:

Before disappearing off to Toddington to work a race train back again. I've been volunteering for 9 years now, but this was my first opportunity to do a race train so a new experience. Coming in empty stock it was a change to see the car parks crowded and full:

Train 2 arrived ahead of us, ran round and propelled down to Hunting Butts to allow us to run round and pull up tight to the signal, allowing train 2 room to squeeze in:

There were comments about very large autotrains!

As we set off the advantages of letting the train take the strain became clear...

Byeeee......!

It was a very pleasant evening, steaming along through the twilight. Although Bryony has hung up her steam loco blogging hat, she kindly sent me a pic of us coming through Bishop's Cleeve to feature, thanks!

Through Winchcombe and the moon was shining brightly:

And finally darkness at Toddington:

A great atmosphere and a very fun turn, I'd highly recommend (much more than the races themselves!)