Saturday 27th - Wagons and Castles

 A warm and sunny day, a good day to do a spot of shunting to extract the next wagon projects, the works currently being in the unhappy situation of having no wagon projects contained within. 

The ones we wanted were obviously not the ones near the front of the queue, nor were they next to each other, so a bit of chopping and changing was required. The team pause to watch the service train cross, train 1 in the charge of Foremarke Hall.

Ah, these are the two we want! GWR Tool Van No.4 and GWR 'Creosote Tank' 43914. Both are looking rather sorry for themselves. Last done up 15-20 years ago, and both over 100 years old, some of the oldest rolling stock we have.

We have two of each type of these wagons, and the plan is to do all four of them up cosmetically to park in No.2 siding at Toddington alongside the goods shed. In one go this tidies up that area for the passing public and gives a purpose to 4 wagons we would probably never run in our usual goods trains.

Eventually the tool vans should look like this:

(Courtesy SVRwiki.com https://www.svrwiki.com/File:112on_30.3.2021.jpg)

I've found two definite liveries for the creosote tanks (most pictures they are covered in a thick layer of grime)

We'll do the first one in black with white lettering...

And the second one in white with red lettering and a dark red horizontal band - should look quite striking! Both pictures are reproduced from 'Great Western Wagons Appendix' by J.H. Russell.

I spent some time looking round the new projects discussing some timber repairs required with our new volunteer Steven. Unfortunately I did my usual trick of totally failing to take any pictures of what I was doing, which in this case included introducing Steven to the department, sorry!!

I did manage to get a few pictures of some of the other activities. The RBr bogies are looking good now as Andy continues with the underframe blacking.

The woodworkers were out in force again too, Steve and Alan cutting another sheet of plywood.

Simon and Alan fitting more roof batons.

And Steve at work in one of the storage cupboards.

Robert meanwhile was continuing with the challenge of door liners, at least now working to the correct profile after the metalwork got adjusted during the week.

Progress on the Santa coach continues, with no wagons yet inside Maurice cleaned up around the gutter line and lower section of the roof.

George found more bits of bubbling paint and rust around where the window used to be to pick out and fill. Both sides are now completely in light grey undercoat, so hopefully it won't be long before a bit of secondary filling is finished and the livery undercoat starts to appear.

With the new ends for FK13326 now purchased work is picking up on this coach again. Ken spent the day sat down drilling holes in the corridor connector.

While John was applying the hot spanner to a bit of stubborn pipework from the water tank filler.

The Upholstery gang seem to be getting on well with the Dean Forest setas, with Jenny and Laura behind both finishing off another seat back.

Pam had something from S&T to look after today, not entirely sure what, some sort of box to protect something I think.

Dave spent the afternoon outside tidying up the wooden panelling covering the corridor on the discovery coach, where the paint had faded to virtually nothing leaving bare wood.

Of course working outside does have its advantages. Several headboards were out today, Foremarke Hall apparently on the Cambrian Coast Express here.

Pendennis Castle is still with us too and sounding absolutely glorious, you can hear it accelerating all the way until it's time to slack off for Hayles!

Another day, another Castle, remarkable just how well off we are in preservation. Sunday I finally got round to doing a Shakespeare Express. 5043 Earl of Mount Edgecombe was in charge and looked in immaculate condition at Stratford.

It looked even better at Birmingham Moor Street though, where a good deal of effort has been made to return the station to GWR style.

In fact it was so good it was worthy of a picture with no train. Almost enough to start to give one ideas about new buildings at Toddington...