Thurs 30th Mar / Sat 2nd April - Where's everybody gone?

Two quietish days at the Works with a number of our volunteers away and, with those present scattered about, at times the place felt almost deserted. 

On Thursday Nick, Bryan and Phil S. were of course wending their way down south to the South Devon Railway to pick up some more supplies, as described in Nick's excellent posting.

So, as to those in for the day.

Bob K. carried on with applying an initial coat of varnish to the new panelling in CK 16221's corridor. It's beginning to look quite something now. Roll on when 3-4 coats of varnish have been applied (4 new tins arrived with today's new paint/varnish delivery).

In the 3rd Rake, Ben was changing a faulty lock for one he has recently serviced, while Roger looks on.

Dennis was cleaning up more of the rake.

The rest of the Indoor Gang were in TK 24006. Alan was reaming out more of the screw holes in this window.

Geoff was sorting out some of the inner framing for this window.

Roger had now also moved over from the 3rd Rake and was removing old rusted window frame screws. It's going to be quite some time before the TK comes into the Works to begin the full restoration, but it's good to get as much done as feasibly possible.

The lunch time view from the Mess Room of S&T's coach with TK 24006 behind it. By the afternoon tea break there was just Bob and myself left, but Phil B.appeared with three visitors and I gave them a tour round the Works, something I always enjoy doing.

Alex appeared as I began my tour and was soon stuck into sanding down more of the Cotswold side of the Bubblecar.

About 4.30 Nick, Bryan and Phil got back from Devon, having had a much better journey back after the lengthy diversion on the way down following the M5 J13-J14 south lane closure. The four large shaped panels will be replacements for corroded ends on RBr 1675, while we now have a very full restock of crash pillers, top hat and z bars, much of which will also be used on 1675.

I'll butt in here with a couple of pics from Thursday evening which was the main reason I was in, to do a bit more on the wagon front at Toddington.

We took advantage of the clocks going forward by spending the first part of the evening outside on the Macaw, where Mark and I were removing rotten planks:

An overall view - we removed about 20 planks with all the coach bolts naturally having to be angle-grinded off:

As the light faded, we went round removing any rust on the curb rail and following on with green primer, we gave up when it really was getting too dark to see where to paint!

so we retreated back inside the shed. Not too much more done on the tank wagon, but Greg put all the timber baulks into 1st gloss black. 

Next week we have another riveting session booked with Ian, hopefully we should make some decent progress.

Back to Dave for Saturday, thanks for doing a double shift Dave, finding time to write a full blog post for Saturday amongst meetings with station masters on more sign stuff and writing May's guard and TTI roster would have been tricky! - Alex

Moving on to Saturday.

Beginning in Upholstery, Jenny uses some little pegs to secure the plain moquette to this seat back for the Bubblecar. The moquette was then pinned with the electric stapler.

A historic moment! The last Bubblecar seat refurbishment is underway. With John assisting, Jenny staples the canvas underlay to the seat cushion. Later in the day, some of the CDR team appeared with a van and took all remaining reupholstered seating, including some original seating that isn't going to be used. And what is all that empty space in Upholstery going to be filled with? Yep, you guessed it - the chairs from RBr 1675.

Down in the Paintshop Jeff continued the general sanding down of the Bubblecar on the Cotswold side.

When the CDR group appeared we had a general discussion on progress and what C&W planned to do with respect to the doors. Progress on the unit is steady but has to fit in with other work such as the repaint of the Gunpowder Van. 

I don't think will be too long before the cat disappears.

Moving into the Workshop where George is continuing his very thorough work on the ends of CK 16221.

On the Cotswold side south door Robert is working on the door frame in preparation for fitting the door liner.

With both Steve and Simon away, no new wall panelling was mounted, but Dave was still busy with the bodyside insulation in this compartment.

In the Toad brake van, Paul has moved on to the sandboxes to clean them out.

This badly rusted sheet of metal had been placed over the sanding hole.

This corner now in oxide. Still a lot to do yet but the overall progression is good.

[Photo: Paul E.] Thanks to Paul for taking this shot of Alex grinding off the BR departmental number plate from the sole bar on the Toad. Proper GW replacements will be ordered.

 Later I caught Alex cleaning up some of the frame.

Definitely a quieter day as the Mess Room is normally packed out on a Saturday. The Upholstery team have their breaks in their workshop.

John was back on bench repair, initally applying wood glue to the bad fracture on this bench.

Finally the support brackets that he made, having previously been painted, are now bolted in place. Both seats have had their oiling completed, so they can now be returned to the back yard. We must get on and clean up the GWR one that was recently donated. Regular readers of the blog will know that our back yard is very popular for staff breaks on nice days.

And still the 3rd Rake cleaning goes on. With eight coaches it takes two people quite some time to do the job properly.

Paul, back from his two week break, was washing the floor in RMB 1808. 

The late morning Winchcombe crossover with 4270 on the Cheltenham train ....................

.................. and Foremarke on the return working.

The Class 45 had just left the station on the last train to Cheltenham, and 4270 now gets away with the return working. Although the bitter wind on Thursday had eased, it was still cold and when this photo was taken it had not long stopped snowing but not enough to remain on the ground.