Monday 25th - Will It Work?

 

Regular readers will know that we had a trial polishing session on a maroon coach on July 28th. Last Friday was the first chance we had to do more, so Paul and myself turned up on a nice sunny morning to have another go. Also with us to start with was Stuart, C&W workshop manager, with all the kit. Now many of you out there will be sceptical that polishing will last a worthwhile time. Stuart is ex Tyseley and has assured us the compound/paste/polish we use will last, provided we also give it a standard wax polish. That hasn't happened (been concentrating on normal Monday work) so when we examined our previous efforts we reluctantly concluded it was starting to fade. So we did that again before moving on to the next section. That was going well - until our nice sunny day turned in to a sudden downpour - end of session! So the plan today was to wax polish the areas we have done. We need to know if it works as there is no way we can sustain polishing an entire train every 8 weeks. But if we don't try we will never know. It is worth noting that with the orientation of our line the Cotswold side of the carriages takes a lot more wear from the weather than the Malvern side.

Picture above is Paul hard at work on Friday.

So it was 10 today - holidays still ongoing. Paul starts early and by the time I arrived washing of the maroon rake in P2 was well underway. Priority then for Paul and myself was to turtle wax the half carriage that we had treated on Friday. We can then monitor this over the coming weeks to see if it is going to be viable. If you are regularly at the railway please keep an eye on this area to see how it is doing.

It was good to have Nigel back, after bringing home souvenir Covid from his holiday in Denmark. He was joined inside by Jane, John (back from hols - toilets!), Kath and Nick. David, Lawrie and Tim were outside as usual.

And here are Lawrie and Tim finishing rake 1 in P1.