Saturday 23rd - And lots of other things

 I'm afraid I was a bit rubbish on blog duty on Saturday and I think I missed a fair bit of activity. In fairness I also forgot to take any pictures of what I was doing either! But there's a fair bit else featured to make up.

Anyway, starting in upholstery today where work was already well under way by the time I emerged from the mess room after a discussion over GWR wagon wheel profiles (exciting, I know!). There's just a few DFR seats left to be recovered and most of them are pictured here.

Meanwhile Helen was on the sewing machine with another cushion cover to sell. Two very profitable exercises for GWSR C&W, well done upholstery team!

With the corridor connection on the RBr mounted last week, James Andy and John spent today connecting up the various linkages and other associated bits and pieces.

Robert was shaving another door liner, some of these are getting very thin, just the way it's ended up with where the Z sections are.

Inside Phil was doing battle with the tangle of wires for the lighting in the saloon.

Alan was repairing this window frame that was cracked, then removing the residue from the previous rubber sealant.

5042 bogie work continued with John cleaning up some more bits in the workshop...

Before fitting them onto the bogies.

The coach went for a trundle up and down the yard to see if everything was all good. Unfortunately one of the axleboxes in the replacement bogie stuck in the guides and didn't want to move, so up in the air again to resolve that.

Another batch of spacer packers for Commonwealth bogie traction rods has been made, these all received a coat of underframe black by George.

Kevin spent a good proportion of the day moving RBr bits out of one of the wagons into the workshop storage area so they are a bit more to hand, and if the wagon disappears for demo goods trains we don't need to try and get it back again! Most of it was very heavy, so some light duties at the end of the day with the routine tidy up of the tools area.

That was all I managed for Saturday, apart from doing some more signwriting on the model railway coach.

So, a few pictures from Toddington wagon activities.

The GWR water tank has been awaiting some new parts to be machined for some time, these have now very kindly been done by the machine shop lads at Toddington. We now need to chop off the ends of the old tie rods and weld these new bits on.

The chaired sleeper wagon is approaching completion on the cosmetic side. In the background 2807 is beginning to look very shiny.

If you're not on Facebook, you might have missed that 2807 has made its first moves since withdrawal for overhaul, I found an excuse to be there, for more pictures and videos do look at the 2807 group's blog gwr2807.blogspot.com/2023/09/she-moves.html

Sunday and the Toddington wagon group fancied playing with the train set *ahem* essential shunting.

The object was to retrieve the Fruit C which needs to be tripped down to Winchcombe for Santa use, and a starfish (not the one pictured) to retrieve DMU engines from within it and for a scheduled quick repaint.

After chopping and changing a few times, much to the delight of interested bystanders, we pushed the rest back into the North siding. Thanks to DOO Andy for those pics.

Lastly, as Dave mentioned last week, I was swanning around on the SVR for their autumn gala with a small contingent from Toddington, so just a few photos. B1 Mayflower was one of the headline guests, a rare appearance on a heritage railway, usually working on the mainline, it was in fine form.

Everybody loves a pannier, and 7714 on a local at Arley was just spot on.

Obviously you have to compare goods trains. Theirs was very nice, in the charge of guest Bagnall 'Vulcan'.

They've got a chaired sleeper wagon in their set too. This one is a lot older than ours though.

Speaking of old wagons, a bit of a novelty at Bewdley on the back siding, a GWR wagon in red! Yes, this is correct (probably) not grey, there is good evidence that before 1904 the GWR painted their wagons a 'bright red' and this is an interpretation of that. We do have a couple of wagons potentially old enough for this livery....

Of course a highlight of the SVR's Autumn gala is the all night running, this was Arley at about midnight, waiting to pass the late night goods train going in the other direction. absolutely magical.

We left our double header of the Bagnall and the Ivatt tank at Bewdley at about 2.30am to grab a few hours' sleep, a very enjoyable night was had by all, even if some felt a bit worse for wear by morning!

One last picture of Kidderminster Railway Museum housed in the original GWR warehouse, with a few wagons including a nice GWR hand crane parked outside. Food for thought for the garden centre site development at Toddington....

Dave and Pam were at the Lynton and Barnstaple for their gala this weekend, so no doubt some photos will be forthcoming of that soon as well.