Thursday 12th - Two distinct halves

With the winter shutdown now in full swing, the work today was very much in two distinct halves, winter maintenance and the continuing refurbishment and restoration projects.

Beginning with winter maintenance and the Main Rake in Platform 2.

 Some deep cleaning in FO 3132 "Mary" with all the cushions lifted and stacked on the tables.

 

Problems had been identified in 3132's south vestibule which resulted with the ceiling being taken down.

 

The sorry state of the ceiling panel, now damp and somewhat warped. 

Paul, Dennis and Roger in discussion. It's not the tank, so what is it? Roof leak or condensation from the water tank?

With little in the way of trains, other than some shunting by us or PWay train movements, the rails soon acquire a rusty coating.

Maroon RMB 1876 is currently up on the jacks. Phil takes advantage of the coach being available to change a worn out wooden rest for the buffer extender. I later gave the new block a coat of black gloss.

The main reason for the coach to be brought in is to repair the steam leak underneath. The corroded section of steam heating pipe has been removed and John points out the problem.

The thread cutter is an extremely useful bit of kit. While John creates the thread at this end of the new pipe, Phil applies the oil. The other end had already been done.

 

The new and old pipes.

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Now moving on to the continuing refurbishment and restoration.

 

Rex trims up another new panel for one of the extended doorways on the Malvern side of RBr 1675.

The left hand doorway with the rebuilt framework where the new panel will be fixed. 

 Returning later to find that Rex has now welded the panel on and cleaned up the welds.

  

The repaired right hand extended doorway.

Further along the Malvern side Bob S. removes the old wood liner from the frame for the emergency door.

Inside the rebuilt kitchen area Bryan is securing the new sheet metal panelling that has replaced the redundant doorway.

Two more parts for the south end corridor connection on 1675 appeared on the trestles. One side had already been primed by David A. the day before. Richard completes the coating of wood primer.

On Wednesday David had also done some more cleaning up of the main frame on the Mogo.

I am very pleased to say that the exterior varnishing on the sides of CK 16221 was completed by Phil J. ...........

....................... and Bob K.

The inner first class door had been sticking on the right hand side. Ainsley had angle ground the upper parts of the door side and door frame on Wednesday, so the first job of the day was to sand these, quickly vacuum any dust created and give the area a wipe over, and then get an initial layer of paint on before we started varnishing.

The inner second class door was also not closing as well as it should. As Rod described the problem, when closed there was no gap at the top and bottom on the hinge side, forcing the door to the right, and on the handle side it was touching at the top, in effect the door had to twist to close.

Rod got to work on the hinge side of the door and frame with a small plane. By the end of the day the door closed easily but there is still some twist. He has reported his findings to the Door Team. Hopefully it is found that no more can currently be done and we can make the necessary paint repairs.

With no more varnishing needed on the Cotswold side, the door handles could be put back on.

Having practically exclusive access, Richard was able to recoat the corridor heater covers in silver Hammerite.

We are ticking them off. Richard cleans the two recently reinstated compartment doors for the second class section.

On Tuesday while shining my little LED torch to check the varnishing in the first class compartments, I discovered that the top beading in two of them hadn't been finished. With blankets covering the new upholstery and a table to squeeze round, Bob initially gave them a coating of wood dye, later followed by another coat of varnish.

Dave H. sands another compartment door from TK 24006 to remove the old varnish. This is the inner side with the lighter main panel.

Now on to the corridor side.

The toilet block pipe and drain cover now fitted by Phil S. This had been made by Robert and given about 8-10 coats of timber paint, so it should last for quite a while.