Wednesday 12th / Thursday 13th - A new challenge

This was a momentous two days as far as our Metalworking Team were concerned with what we hope will be the first of a better way of rebuilding a coach body.

The south end of Rbr 1675 at the end of Thursday's work.

More of that later.

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Firstly some photos from Wednesday nearly all taken by Rod and Gerry.

 

[Photo : Rod]  Our two blue trolleys are extremely useful, in particular for moving doors, mainly for which I think they were obtained. They do take a battering though, especially when transporting a door from storage across the rough ground in the yard. It looks as though Ainsley is sorting out a problem with this wheel.

[Photo : Rod]  The unusual quarter doors (apologies for being pedantic, but they are actually about a third of the width of a normal door) taken from 1675 may in fact be used after all, rather than the proposed replacements recently acquired from storage (Door Team - please correct me if I am wrong). Looking at the eased down metal panelling at the base, it looks as though some work has been started on these.

On Thursday I took this photo of the final door for 1675 for cleaning up prior to the rebuild by the team. They had taken my last prepared door from here and replaced it with the above.

 [Photo : Gerry]  John is making a new compartment table support.

 [Photo : Gerry]   Our metal saw has been working overtime lately. Ken A. tops up the suds.

[Photo : Gerry]  Up on the scaffold Rex is busy with the final preparations for mounting the large end panel on the south end of RBr 1675.

[Photo : Gerry]   We thought the crossbearers under the north end of 1675 were ok, but on closer inspection .........  Ken is busy with repairs to this one.

 [Photo : Gerry]  Ken R. continues the rebuild of 1675's south end corridor connection.

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On now to Thursday's activities and beginning with some good progress with CK 16221.

Starting with Martin undercoating the Malvern side north corner, doorframe and top part of the door.

On the Cotswold side the north end door and corner remained unlined. Richard marked up  the line, taped up, and then applied the yellow.

At the south end Phil painted the second top coat on the door and corner.

Later on he carried on where Martin had been. First a very light sand of the base coat.

Nearly done. We should soon be top coating this side and can catch up with the Cotswold side.

Richard moved down to the south half of the Cotswold side to begin the lining out, once again starting with the yellow band.

My job for the day was tidying up, clearing out rubbish, vacuuming, and generally setting up the inside of the coach ready for our regular flooring contractors Bob and Pete.

The initial levelling compound will be applied on Saturday. The new marmoleum (lino), and carpet in the first class compartments, will follow on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

A poignant request for our secretary Eve was to produce dymo labels for the two new framed photos for our Memorial  Wall.

The first is for Tony, our much missed member of the Indoor Gang. A photo of our former head painter Richard is being sourced (Richard had retired before Peter Bennett initiated our first blog and we had regular supply of photos of our work).

Phil and Dennis take a break to watch P&O pass with a Cheltenham bound train.

With Richard I away on holiday, his fellow electrician Richard II was on his own with the job of gathering up redundant batteries from the various coaches, this time PWay's crimson and cream Mess Coach.

Later he had help from Roger, from the Indoor gang, to remove these very heavy batteries from under the old Army RBr. I helped them get the trolley back to the Works.

While out at the end of the yard, the lovely day begged a photo of the Cotswold escarpment with currently out of use SK 25743 and the Chicken Curve embankment.

Now to the highlight of the day and a first for C&W, the mounting of one of the two pre-fabricated end panels from South Devon Railway Engineering on to RBr 1675. Support from Gerry on the scaffold and Bryan at ground level while Rex carefully clamps the bottom of the panel to the coach's structure.

Now firmly clamped, with even a ratchet strap in place further up.

Nick discusses the next steps with Chris, Rex and Bryan.

You may be asking after the last photo, "Chris? Didn't know there was a Chris in the Metalwork Team". Introducing our latest and very welcome recruit to the team on his first day with us. 

I later caught Chris in the process of removing a redundant section of wood from the emergency doorway on the Cotswold side of 1675.

Nick takes a break from the new panel job to work on the cantrail above the kitchen doorway on the same side.

In relation to this job Bryan is preparing a little fixture to enable the correct communication cord alignment, in effect getting the tube in the correct place within the cantrail. An action shot complete with blurred arms!

While all this was going on Gerry was busy with the grinder making some small adjustments before the main job of welding the new panel to the frame could begin.

A lot happened while I was busy inside 16221. When finally emerging from the coach, the job had been done and the panel tack welded in place.

No excuses for repeating this photo. Well done team!