Thursday 1st - And into the next month

After a very busy May, what will June be bringing us? For starters, hopefully a break from this cold eastery/northeasterly wind! Summer is here, so let's have it please!

Beginning with a new side panel for one of the compartments in SK 24949. This had been done on Wednesday and was waiting for us in the Mess Room.

 

 Well done Laura - a very professional job! 😀

 

Off to the 3rd Rake siding and into 24949 to photo Alan removing the old worn out panel, which put up quite a fight.

 Alan won the day and was soon fitting the replacement. Another job sorted.

 Dinmore passes with the first train for Cheltenham.

Dennis is refilling the tanks of the 4th Rake coaches. Their next outing will probably be the Diesel Gala over the weekend of 7-9 July.
 

Destined to be returned to the yard, but now brightly painted in yellow, is the special box that has been made for the electric connectors.

Back to the Santa Coach in the Paintshop where another good day was had. Maurice completed the cleaning up of the Malvern side of the roof, where there was flaking paint behind and just above the gutter. After vacuuming the dust and residue, it was given a coat of etch primer.

Jeff tackled the Cotswold side of the north end where a lot of digging out, sanding, priming and filling has been required.

 The south end is as bad and it took Phil quite some time before progress became more obvious.

We were determined to get the Cotswold side of the coach ready for undercoating, so Bob and I got cracking with the remaining sanding and further secondary filling where required.

More work on 1675 with Gerry cleaning up the welding on the Malvern side.where the adjustments to the doorway z bars had been undertaken.

Over in the main body of the Workshop Ken was carefully measuring a length of box section steel ready for cutting. I didn't get around to asking him what it was for.

A surprise visitor was Peter from our Friday Maintenance Team, servicing a toilet compartment water tank ..............................

.................... and then setting it up within the testing facility in the Barn that Phil S. had created quite sometime ago now.

Ian and Stu had quite a busy day shunting. Initially transferring TSO 4614 (which didn't get put back in the Maroon Rake) to the 3rd rake siding.

The 3rd Rake was then split up to enable the annual buckeye inspection for this set of coaches to be done by the Maintenance Team the next day.

Walking back to the Barn for a photo of the Creasote Tank and the first of the serviced and repainted bogies for RBr 1675. It is likely that the tank will be grit blasted before it comes into the Paintshop; this will be far more thorough and a lot less time consuming than trying to clean it up by hand.

While his Indoor Gang companions, Alan and Geoff, went off for a ride behind Pendennis Castle (it's final day with us), Roger had a go at cleaning some of the lower panels on the Discovery Coach in Platform 2 Bay. Stu had already tried a cutting compound on part of the coach to remove the oxidised layer of paint, with very good results. Roger's efforts with this were equally as good. Hopefully we can get the rest of this side of the coach done as time permits. The Model Railway coach next to it will have to be repainted, another job waiting for both the right weather conditions and of course available time. PWay's GUV further down the yard has also been sidelined for an outdoor repaint. Busy times ahead!

Back in the Paintshop, we were very pleased to see Alex turn up. As such we were able to complete the secondary filling and sanding on the Cotswold side of the Santa Coach and could begin adding the line tapes. By the end of the day, the bottom one was complete and about half of the top one., which means that we will be livery undercoating on Saturday.

The power brushing and anglegrinding by Maurice had caused a lot of dust top settle on the Malvern side. As such he gave both this side of the coach and the floor a good vacuuming.
 

At the south end Phil J. had done as much as he wanted for the day, so began adding the dark grey undercoat.

Maurice finishes his day with a bit more work on these two lamps that had appeared on the trestles at the weekend.

A final look at the yard with the rearranged 3rd Rake coaches, and the GUV brought in from the far end of the Cotswold side sidings. 

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 A few pics from me on what was Pendennis Castle's last day in service with us, as we had an evening photo charter which was my main reason for being at the railway, to keep an eye on proceedings from the ground.

The weather was looking promising as the participants gathered at Toddington, awaiting the end of the days service trains. Some decided the Cl.20 and 24 double heading was worthy of a photo.

Dinmore Came off ready for Pendennis to come onto the stock for the evening.

First port of call was go down to Winchcombe and run round so the loco was chimney first. Martin, the charter organiser, discusses with driver John, the planned shots.

The gallery assembled....And the sun went in. We patiently waited, and waited, and then, quick, go go go!

A fine sight, a castle on The Cornishman at full chat.

The train goes all the way past, stops and propels back.

Unfortunately, at this point, the sun went in again and stubbornly stayed in, and the whole evening was very murky and dull.

After trying a couple of locations just north of Chicken Curve in the cutting we headed up to Broadway, where at least there was some nice GWR atmosphere to soak up if if there was no sunset.

Plenty took advantage of the footbridge.

Which afforded a suitably moody shot.

No dramatic sunset or silhouette shots unfortunately, but you can't control the weather. Nevertheless, it was still good to have some final runs with Pendennis Castle, which has been a fabulous guest - we really don't want to send it home!

Hopefully we can do some more photo charters soon, certainly from a volunteer perspective they are great fun. We know we can't do perfect recreations all the time, but charters are one of those rare occasions when we can get things just spot on, which is hugely satisfying and why we all turn up and put so much effort in the rest of the time!