Saturday 15th - Is it Spring now?

 A pleasant day to be at the railway, with none of the dreadful weather we've had over the last few days and weeks, enough to be getting on with some outdoor work.

Dennis was first off, sorting out the third rake:

And while I was there, watch P&O steam past too

Today was a good day for Clive and I to tick off some annual pad exams on wagons being used during the steam gala. It was mostly the short BR set that needed doing, having not been used since last year's steam gala:

Pleasingly they were all in good condition with only a couple of boxes showing signs of leakage. On the bright side, now that we're doing this regularly, the job gets easier as fewer nuts are seized on their threads. On the downside, we're now amassing such a fleet of operational wagons that we have to spend more and more time just doing exams on them!

We paused to watch Braveheart going the other way, trains were pleasingly full today.

Next door to us also making use of the dry day was Dave, putting some paint on one of our storage BGs to help prevent any further deterioration.

On our way through the works, the two Andys puzzle over how best to test the pipework on 16221 that unfortunately got failed during the week.

We quietly snuck past with the vacuum pump before they realised they might need it to hook it up to the Fruit C, which we also want to use at the gala. The cylinder showed signs of life although the brakes will need a bit of adjusting.

One cylinder that was off was on the CK, John blanking off some pipework here I think to allow some testing.

Meanwhile seeing as it was off, Dave took the opportunity to give the cylinder itself a more thorough coat of paint than we'd managed beforehand.

Alan and Simon continued their fantastic job building the floor for the RBr. Here cutting another section in the paintshop.

And another section fitted.

Dave also found some painting to do here, the North corridor connection can soon be fitted.

Ben spent most of the day angle-grinding this door portal to try and enlarge it such that a door might fit in it.

As you can see, quite a lot had to come off.

Laura and Jenny were on duty in upholstery today, starting on a new venture helping out the Dean Forest Railway. As our gang are always way ahead of the rest of the works, we've agreed to do a set of TSO seats for them. They've chosen this Boomerang style, another early '50s design contemporary with the red chain link and the blue and gold chestnut leaf we all like.

Back in the workshop and the main job on the Mogo today was battening down the roof canvas. I captured Paul...

And a passing train from the window...

And Paul captured me. Another job ticked off as this project nears completion.

Another small job done by John for us was the addition of a little bit of metal on the door lintel metal straps to receive the door locking bars. Originally the bits holding the locking bar were countersunk into the wood allowing the bar to be retained behind the metal strip, but we didn't fancy doing this with the plywood, so a small modification and it all works nicely.

Final picture of the day is the wooden nameplates to dress up Foremarke, I splashed a bit more paint on them including some rather nice brass effect stuff. Must make sure we put that number plate on the right way round!