Saturday 7th - Starting to tick the jobs off

 A pretty grim day to be outside; lineside clearance and P'way gangs both gave up in the end, but with a bit of shelter the dirty gang was able to make a good start on the long list of winter maintenance jobs today.

First up, disconnect the bogies on TSO 4614 on the jack road:

It was soon up in the air for bogies to be extracted to be sent away for tyre turning. Some of the bogie disconnected can be done from above:

While other bits there's no choice but to go crawling:

And who's legs are these!?

Ah it's Clive - he may be our new rolling stock director on the board but he's still happy showing why the dirty gang gets its name!

Thanks to Ian for those last 4 photos.

Then it was down the yard to go and collect some accommodation bogies, you can see how dark it was even in the middle of the day:

Now looking a little brighter, the yard looks somewhat empty with the P'way train gone up to Didbrook for their winter relay project. Bogies mid-swap outside the barn:

Blink and you miss it! That paint job repair on 4614 will have to wait, it was lowered onto accommodation bogies and RMB 1876 brought in and lifted up too. I think this one's in to repair some steam heat leaks:

In amongst all the shunting somehow rake 1 disappeared, leaving Dennis without a train to attend to!

Before Clive joined in with Dirty Gang pursuits he was getting dirty working on the Mogo first thing, power brushing more flaking paint of the metal frame:

Later on Michael and I took over:

And primed everything we'd done at the end, slow progress but heading in the right direction:

We spent the last our or so unwinding the rest of the nuts that we could with a spanner, Ian captured me telling Michael how to do it!

Meanwhile in the paintshop Martin was painting the first 'tailgate' door:

While John was waiting for the RMB with the steam leak to come in, Andy was showing him a repair that needed doing for the green Cl.37 on one of the sanding pipes - it seems they often get clonked:

CK 16221 moves steadily towards completion, Dave cleans up a window blind block and a door handle with paint stripper:

Simon was fitting handles and locks to the toilet doors:

Steve was testing the waterproofness of the stretcher window:

Unfortunately despite our best efforts, it still leaks, and like BR we've had to admit defeat somewhat on this. It's now been locked and masticked up so won't be able to be used. We did try! And at least it's still there.

I also made a start on some of the internal labels, it's amazing how many FIRST stickers you need even for a CK:

In the workshop Dave was busy sanding down one of the compartment doors for his coach, 24006:

On the painting trestles, the cab bits requiring varnishing for steam loco 3850 and nearing completion:

Dave captured me showing Pam how to do the black shading on lettering:

She soon took over and did a fine job: