Monday 30th - oooh, That's Different!

 As I drove in there was something very odd about the the train parking.

Paul and Roger O discussing the plan for today, but as you can see Train 1 was mostly off of platform 2. Look carefully and you can see an orange clad volunteer and behind him a trolley parked on the barrow crossing. Later the explanation was revealed.

The team today was up to 8 volunteers. As well as Roger and Paul there was John, Nigel, Jane, David, Mark and yours truly. 

Last weekend was the Ale weekend and a lot of the liquid was wasted and ended up on the floor of Train 2! So that had to have a thorough mop after the cleaning. By comparison Train 1 had just one large coffee stain outside of the counter in the RBR. How did it work out like that?

Jane and myself went over to Train 1 whilst the rest of the team dealt with train 2. John was on Team Leader privilege duty of toilets in both sets.

This greeted us on platform 2 :-

You can see the offset, hence this side did not get a wash this week (it was done last week). The explanation arrived later with a visit from C & W head Ian Stroud. He appeared and introduced himself (we have corresponded but never met) and explained work had been needed on the RBR. A gas leak needed fixing and he put in a special day with a colleague (sorry, Ian did say but I forgot the name! It was Phil -Ed.) to fix it. The problem was the generator had to be removed to get at it and that meant the only way was to do it on a non-operating day so that the trolley to hold the generator could be placed on the barrow crossing. Ian also went round and introduced himself to all the rest of the team. Much appreciated to see the HOD.

Saturday 28th - The final piece of the jigsaw

 Another hectic day with lots of focus on gala preparations. We began the morning with 3 wagons all without drawhooks and associated assemblies. All 3 are the more complex arrangement as opposed to the simple hook - spring - washer - nut arrangement on later vehicles too.

Mark and I headed out to the Gunpowder van to do that one:

We had some new parts made up which you can see at the top of the photo, many thanks to Toddington Machine shop for the quick turn around of the pins.

Underneath the Mink A the cradle which was successfully jacked back into place last week had fallen out again, so the jacks had to come out again and a more solid solution was sorted out:

On Friday I also popped in to sign-write the Mink, which is now looking rather different to this time last week:

The Toad was a little more straightforward on the drawbar front, Clive doing the hook assembly:

Underneath the cradle had moved such that the nut could be wound too far on one drawbar and not far enough on the other, and wasn't terribly interested in moving back again, but jacks soon sorted that out:

While up above, Richard, Maurice and Paul were doing some intermediate repairs to the roof just to allow it to last for the gala, before it receives a brand new one:

So with all the hooks back in, and the vacuum system reconnected on the Toad, it was suggested that the next obvious step was to connect everything up and do a brake test on all 4 vehicles in C&W, so fire up the 03!

It did mean that I couldn't really avoid hiding my signwriting on the Toad any longer, having kept the allocation under wraps all week, here we are:

I don't mind saying I'm rather pleased with that!

The zoomed out view was getting to be something special, with 4 GWR vehicles all lined up together in the sunshine:

This should be about a third of the freight train - I'm definitely getting excited now! Brake van rides, including on the Toad, are first come first served on the day, and I cannot wait for that first goods train into Broadway; an almost entirely GWR train, hauled by a GWR freight loco, into a period GWR station.

Anyway, before all that, does everything work? Well mostly. The toad put up a bit of a fight on the vac brake system, but eventually the brakes did what they were supposed to do, albeit a little slowly. The gauge resolutely stayed at zero though, which would have been the equivalent of an MOT failure.

A basic "switch it off an on again" was tried late afternoon though, and success!

We'll take that.

While all that was going on, in the paintshop the old C&W open day shop was being set up:

So yet another attraction for the gala, as if there wasn't enough to tempt you to visit our C&W works over the weekend.

Whilst I'm sure there was a fair amount going on towards our other existing projects I'm afraid I got a bit caught up on all the wagon related shenanigans today so didn't manage to capture much else, but Dave carried on the outdoor prep work on the Quainton Road TSO, and Steve was in the woodwork shop nailing, erm, something, to, erm, something else...

Sorry, I haven't done very well there!

However, it was a milestone day for Chris, who was once again busy making doors on 16221 fit:

As he received his 15 years' service award today, presented to him by Ian, congratulations Chris!

The other person I caught at work was Robert, who was busy knocking up some pretend sandboxes for the Toad:

 Really the main idea here is just to have some structures around the vac cylinder on the veranda to prevent passengers tripping over things.

Sunday was more overtime for Richard and I to get the Toad ready. After we worked together to fix the floor down, we installed the sandboxes and I got to work with the paintbrush, and Richard posed at the end of a successful extra day:

While I was painting however, Richard was up fixing the roof as best we can just for the weekend:

At least it has a neat edge now and hopefully the canvas won't flap around in the wind any more! It needs a whole new roof really but that will have to wait until after the gala, but crucially fixing it now makes it usable, which makes it a great job done.

Final job of Sunday was to drill and fit the new cast number plates on the solebar, they are a nice little detail to finish things off:

Thanks to Richard for that photo.

Thursday 26th - There are times when a title generator would be useful

Another busy Thursday, although I wasn't able to capture all the work going on. This was mainly because I was involved with some work on the Mink van as Alex was unable to attend today. Apologies to those I missed.

Beginning with CK 16221, various ceiling sections for the vestibules have appeared in the Paintshop so we need to get on with these as our Woodwork team will want to get them fitted. Martin L. applies white undercoat to the largest one; the others needed initial priming.

Ainsley works in the entrance for the second class central door in 16221. Judging by the mass of sparks it looks as though the door frame needs some attention.

Later on he had transferred to the first class end door on the Malvern side, again cleaning up the door frame.

One of the jobs today was checking the toilet tanks at both end of the coach. 

The filler pipes union on the south end of the roof was leaking and was subsequently removed and stripped down. 

Phil is busy cutting out new gaskets to replace the existing worn ones. Hopefully this will sort out the problem.

While I was busy with the Mink van, Ken had been busy nearby cleaning up what I think looks like the main frame for one of the gas bottle cupboards that are suspended under RBr 1675 (I forgot to ask!). A coating of red oxide completes the job.

Just across from the Barn in the nearby siding is TSO 4867 where Dave is once again working on the Malvern side. Rather like his BCK 21092 which was covered in odd claw marks, 4867 in places is the same. With the former we were having to go back to bare metal to remove them all; hopefully we won't have to do quite so much with this one.

The Indoor Gang have transferred to the interior and were busy removing the old trim from the windows. While Roger tackles this one, .............

 ...... Geoff is on the Cotswold side tackling another. It all looks pretty grubby and tired underneath the old wood inner frame sections, but at the moment any metalwork repairs appear to be minimal.

Back to the Paintshop where some more progress was made with the Bubblecar as Martin J. top coats the frame for the Malvern side double doors.

I later returned to find he had gone, but was very impressed with the lovely job he had made top coating the double doors. Progress is rather varied at the moment, but when the major effort on freight vehicles has been completed and the gala is over, we should be able to concentrate a lot more on the Bubblecar. We need to!

More preparation for the gala with the Toad axleboxes being serviced, a job with kept Bryan and Rex busy for quite some time. 

  The footboards need to be removed to be able to do the job properly. Rex reattaches this one.

My main job was to finish off the undercoating on the Mink where needed, which included some repair work on the Cotswold side planking and the cleaning up and priming of the north end roof capping bar. The underframe still needs attention.

Another blog posting finished, but I still can't think what to call it!

Tuesday 24th - It's all coming along very well

Having viewed the blog every day while enjoying a lovely week in my "second home", I was amazed at the amount of effort being put in to get our gala freight up and running. Well done all, an excellent effort! It was also a treat to see our first visiting loco arrive in Roger's posting. As such I really looked forward to getting back to the Works to see it all first hand and I wasn't disappointed.

Good progress had been made with the Bubblecar and it was good to see lining out tape on at last and top coating underway. Ian was concentrating on the cream undercoating of the windows on the door backs. This is as far as we will be going with these as the CDR group want to add their own top coat.

Richard had a good vac round and then restarted the top coating on the Malvern side.

Most of the Door Team have now transferred from Wednesdays to Tuesdays as the Woodwork/Doors shop was becoming somewhat crowded on the former day. Ben carefully sharpens the blade from the plane he is about to use.

At the far end of the shop Robert is making some new door bases for CK 16221.

The top one is completed while the bottom one awaits attention.

Ainsley assesses the working of the First Class central door on the Malvern side of 16221.

The completed Second Class central door.

Ben adds the bottom panel to the south end Second Class door.

Alan was back on rack cleaning again. It's a tedious job but the results of this activity prove that it is a very worthwhile job and they will look good when reinstated in 16221.

Activity in TK 24006 is gradually winding down as most of the work that can feasibly be done at this stage has been completed. Robert finishes sanding down the veneer panelling in the north vestibule. This will now be varnished as much as anything to provide protection. At the moment the coach is not scheduled to come into the Works to complete its restoration until 2026, such is the amount of work we already have lined up; however the schedule isn't set in stone and could very easily change.

Keith was once again busy with a number of jobs, and no surprise that there were more chairs from RBr 1675 to lightly sand and varnish. Besides these two, there were another four lined up against the Paintshop wall. I think they really are coming to an end - honest!

Following the Bubblecar into the Paintshop will be the Santa coach for a quick repaint. Bob does some preparatory work on the roof side. With no windows and just the doors on the Malvern side it really will be a quick job.

Now onto the goods vehicles. Firstly the Mink is coming along very rapidly, with Alex already adding top coat GW Grey on the Malvern side.

The Cotswold side is already two-thirds undercoated. Clive makes a small repair prior to doing the final third.

[Photo : Alex]   As I was out there taking photos, Alex ask if I would pop back into the Works for some red oxide to quickly coat a couple of cleaned up bits that had been derusted. And while I was doing that he promptly captured me in the act.

The weather was a constant threat and rained on and off during the morning, so on returning later I found the van had been pushed into the Barn. Alex by now had moved onto the north end.

[Photo : Paul E.]  Paul captured Clive when he had almost completed undercoating the Cotswold side.

Towards the end of the day and he was well on the way to completing the south end. Absolutely brilliant progress overall. There's still top coating to finish and then Alex will do the numbers and lettering.

As for the Toad, the end must be in sight with excellent progress here too. Maurice is busy top coating the south end.

At the north end Paul is also top coating.

[Photo : Paul E.]  The south end finished.

[Photo : Paul E.]  I hadn't seen much of Stu during the day and then realised he had been busy with the interior. With the cream top section completed, he applies GW Brown to the lower half.

A final photo just prior to leaving for the day, and what an excellent job!

Just over a week to go now before the Gala and our preparations for opening up the works to our travelling public are also well underway.

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Before signing off, a few photos from my Exmoor interlude and the L&B Spring Gala.

 

Arriving on Saturday 14th, with the cloudy/sunny day turning into full glorious sunshine. It was great to see the lovely red mass of Countisbury again. Believe it or not, there was a footpath down to Sillery Sands at the base of that cliff - I believe it is now cut off at the bottom following a number of rock falls.

We were able to visit the L&B on Sunday. Although it seems as though there aren't many visitors, it was in fact a very successful gala with quite large numbers during the day. "Lyn" returns to Woody Bay with the first train of the day.

"Faith" at the west end of the freight. "Axe" was at the east end.

A close up of "Faith". I believe this lovely little engine is still for sale. If a buyer is found I hope she stays here.

As the saying goes, it's a (very) small world! It was great to meet Robin T., the former manager of the very much missed Elegant Excursions dining train that ran for many years on our Railway. Also at the gala was Jo R. from our Permanent Way team, and the small world scenario didn't end there because on one of our two visits to the Village Inn in Lynmouth we met Keith P. who regularly reads our blog.

When returning to the shuttle bus at the end of the day, we were very kindly offered a ride behind this lovely miniature traction engine.

And then of course there is that other railway that makes getting between Lynton and Lynmouth very much easier. For decades we have slogged up the long and steep climb from Lynmouth, so it's nice to take the alternative and give our ageing legs a rest. It's actually harder going down!

The classic view of Lynmouth Harbour with the Rhenish Tower prominent on the quay.

The lovely boulder strewn East Lyn River. If you have never walked up this valley I can thoroughly recommend it. Of course it isn't always like this. We had a very different walk about 30 years ago when, after a night of very heavy rain, the river was a swirling thunderous torrent and the water coloured dirty brown with peat. All the wooden bridges across it were literally drumming with the vibration of the surging water, which almost made you dizzy when looking at it. It was scary and gave you a tiny glimpse of what it must have been like during that awful night in August 1952 when half of Lynmouth was destroyed.

Very unusual to see Watersmeet so quiet. Also very unusual is that it is currently closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to staff shortages.

On the Wednesday, as we just happened to be travelling back along the A39 and passing Woody Bay Station, a few more very pleasant hours were spent enjoying the L&B.

 

An evening stroll through Lynton and along the terraced lane to the famous cliff walk, known as North Walk, certainly had its rewards as the sun came out to highlight the glorious view.

There can't be many cricket grounds in such a fantastic setting as the Valley of Rocks. The excellent Mother Meldrum's Tea Garden is just beyond, and  in the distance.Lee Abbey religeous retreat and conference centre, and Woody Bay, the former home of singer Elkie Brooks.

The view from Selworthy Green National Trust village over the Holnicote Estate to the distant Dunkery Beacon, the highest point on Exmoor, never fails to produce a good photo.