Saturday 21at - All hands to the pump

 Apologies if goods wagons aren't your thing, but inevitably they're featuring quite a lot at the moment here as it's my main pre-occupation! So starting with them...

There were a number of small issues with the Mink G that precluded it running, we've steadily worked through them. I think the last showstopper was a very precarious door locking bar - the timber it was screwed into was holding on by a thread. Robert kindly helped out with a fresh piece of wood and got it all solid and working:

On the Mink A, the dirty gang were underneath servicing the drawgear:

At some stage the cradle had dropped out of its runner and needed jacking back up.

It had obviously been like that for some time as the pins were rather worn:

I spent some time getting the North end ready for undercoating, initially with the wire wheel on the steel uprights before applying some red oxide:

Towards the end of the day we pushed it just inside the barn just in case it rains during the week - we can't afford rain to stop play on this one!

Progress on the Toad was also good, Maurice and Paul broke out the topcoat on the Malvern side:

Paul captured me paining the upper part of the interior in top coat cream:

Later on I too picked up the top coat grey, and did most of the Cotswold side:

Hopefully Tuesday should see everything into gloss.

At Toddington progress was also good, Mark captured Harry and Andy (after a morning driving P&O) painting the beer tank conflat:

By the end of the day all the brown had been done and about half of the underframe in black:

The Macaw also had the last of its gloss done, which allowed me to pop in on Sunday for a little bit of overtime to finish the signwriting:

Time to update the picture on the wagon list!

It wasn't all wagons though, the usual complement of upholstery members soldiered on with RBr chairs:

Ken was busy making lots of noise, I think he was cleaning up components from the RBr too:

The CK also saw plenty of focus, here Paul, Phil and Dennis were checking the water tanks and associated plumbing to see if it all held water:

Chris and Ben put another door on, always feels like a good step forward when that happens:

While Dave was on compartment panelling fitting:

We're never too busy to watch a train or two, P&O and Foremarke were out today and as they were facing different directions, every other crossover you got a smokebox first passing smokebox first: