Saturday 30th - Goodbye 2023

The last working day of the year and busy one with more of us returning after the Christmas period.

While it might be our last working day of the season, our running days still numbered three with trains ending on New Years Day. The signalman holds the token ready as 2807 runs past with the positioning train to pick up the first passengers from Cheltenham.

Stu introduced us to an amazing heavy duty scraper with a tungsten carbide tip which he used to use at Tyesley for heavy underframe work on both locos and coaches. This made very short work of the thick layers of paint and filler on the side of RBr 1675. There are many types of tungsten carbide scrapers available but on his advice we need to avoid the smaller cheaper ones. The one he has is eye-wateringly expensive but it is better and will last longer.

Taking a break from door work Ainsley spent the day stripping the Cotswold side of 1675 using a combination of the scraper, angle grinder with sanding disk, and pad sander to finish off.

Inside 1675 David continued the rebuilding of the oak window frames.

Simon ponders the rebuilding of the back shelving for the counter area.

One of the side panels has been made and is being checked for size and where the cut outs need to be and if necessary modified.

 The end result is a double thickness end panel, firmly attached and very well made.

Dave returned to the job he was doing on Thursday, lifting the indicated floor panels in the corridor.

The backs of the panels and the supporting wood cross members were treated with Creocote.

 

It doesn't come out well in a photograph, but when walking past this on the side of 1675, the markings seem to stand out in a weird holographic effect. The illusion is so marked that you are tempted to try placing your hand "within" the effect. It's then that the illusion vanishes.

My job, when not running around taking blog photos or getting caught up in other things, was removing any paint spots and cleaning the Cotswold side windows on SK 25488. Where needed some minor paint snagging was done in the window slider areas. The shunt to replace 25488 with 1675 and bring FK 13326 into the Workshop from the Barn will now probably be on Saturday 6th January.

More new shelving in the Woodshop with Kevin neatly sorting out and labelling more boxes of screws. 

Robert preparing more hardwood that will be further cut for door liners.

 

 With Paul away until next week Dave kindly stands in with the tea making.

We had some good numbers on the trains today, and plenty of photographers too! With Foremarke Hall on the Maroon Rake bound for Toddington, 2807 passes on its second round trip with the Cheltenham train.

Hello, where's Stu taking the line of good vehicles that were stabled on the Works line? Ian was shunter on Platform 2.

The move was necessary to free up the siding so that the bogies could be rearranged in their required order for when the relevant coaches come in for servicing during the shutdown period.

 The bogies are very carefully chained together prior to the initial move.

A stroll down the yard later in the day to where the goods vehicles have been stabled. One of the two grey vans is planned to come into the Works, along with the MICA van, for repairs and repainting.

RMB 1808 was up on the jacks with a steam leak now fixed.

 John does a final check of the bogie position before finally lowering the coach body.

It was just Laura in Upholstery today, making cushion covers from one of the new batches of moquette acquired for both this and the new line in bags and spectacle cases.

The pile of cushions ready for collection by both our Shop staff and Admin team, the latter looking after our online sales which are doing very well. 

More cushions and stacked covers. 

As to how well we are doing, Laura told me the number of cushions so far sold since we started this last April. 

It's amazing!

How many? 

Look out for the number in Alex's round-up for 2023.

Two end of the day photos showing how much Ainsley had done on the side of 1675 and below the whiter-than-white glow of the Tank Wagon as Maurice continues to paint on the gloss white.

 

The blurred image of Foremarke Hall as it passes the Works and heads back to Toddington with the penultinate train of the day, the lights from the signalbox and Paintshop reflected along the boiler and tender. Unless anyone from C&W is on the trains on Sunday or Monday, this is the last train C&W staff will see this season (we were in the Mess Room when the diesel hauled final train of the day came by). Roll on March 2024!

Thursday 28th - Back to work

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and Boxing Day. We were closed on the latter day and Wednesday, but back to work today. We had a good turnout considering we are still in the holiday period with 8 attending - it should have been 10 but two of the team were unable to return as planned.

Beginning with Steven who began to construct the two support sections at the south end of the tank wagon.

 Maurice began adding top coat to the Malvern side.

 That's the first one made and having a trial fit.

The end result, now on the painting testles, where the screws heads will be filled and the two supports primed and painted.

The two sides of the tank wagon standing out very sharply as the gloss white continues to be added.

 

 The north end receives its coating.

One job with SK 25488 was to tidy up the base of the window slider frames and the edges of the sliders where needed. No matter how carefully the painting is done, sticking sliders can result and freeing them up can slightly damage the paintwork. A quick sand and touch up with each window soon sorted it out, the job being shared by David (above) and Martin (below).

Another job done was the repaint of the insides of the centre doors, the upper halves which are painted. Both were looking the worse for wear, so Martin taped up the first door. I then took over, taped up the opposite door and gave both a fresh coat of cream. It was quite an improvement.

David painted the two charging points and the fuse box cover in red, and then gave the steps a final coat of gloss black.

With all that done I think I can declare SK 25488 as finished. Alex has some highlighting to do on the two numbers and we just need to have a final vac throughout. There are more things that we could do inside had time been available, but the winter shutdown jobs are calling and so, with the shunt planned for next Wednesday, 25488 will return to the sidings, it's first use probably being the Cotswold Festival of Steam.

Foremarke Hall sets off back to Toddington. Despite being back to a 10 mile railway, we still had some good numbers on the two trains. 

Kevin makes the most of the holiday period, attending today and again on Saturday. He does a great job, here sorting out stuff that none of us stop and do.

A phone call from Ian - if anyone is looking for work there is more creocoting to be done, this time in 1675's corridor - just look for the panels marked with an X. Dave happily took on the job and managed to get the panels in front of the counter done. The powered screwdriver soon removes the many screws .

 Next, vacuum everything underneath ..................

 .................... and then on with the creocote, both on the wood supports and backs of the heavy plyboard panels. Once screwed back down each panel was given a tick.

2807 on its final run to Toddington with some nice reflections of the Christmas lights.

Saturday 23rd - Just two days to go

Well here we are again with Christmas almost upon us. This year has flown by with so much going on.

It was the last day of our Santa Specials and what better than to see 2807 on the first train of the day. 2023 has been a great year for the engine with the return to steam after the major overhaul.

Back to the "whiter-than-white" glow of the Tank Wagon, with Maurice taping up before adding more top coat white. As for running out of white undercoat with respect to giving the Malvern side a second coat, we decided to add extra top coats instead which meant that Maurice could carry on and get the job done.

Moving over to SK 25488, Robert mounts a new back panel to the Cotswold side north end door. I later gave this another coat of varnish.

At the south end, some more paint snagging was done and this door panel also given another coat of varnish. More varnish was added inside, especially the base of the south vestibule panel that Bob has worked on during Thursday.

Reflections galore! The inner side of the south end connection door was given a polish with Briwax before being remounted.

On to the Workshop and RBr 1675 where Ainsley and Bob were attacking more of the old paint.

As previously stated, the removal of this will be a combination of angle grinder and hot air gun. A long job but well worth the effort if we are to make a better job of the repainting.

Stu was doing more vacuum cylinder maintenance, here adding a new sleeve to a piston.

More sorting out being done by Kevin.

In the Barn FK 13326 progress with the rebuild of both ends has very good, and this now includes the long outstanding repair to the above-window hole on the Malvern side which was done by Alan. The gutter can now be reinstated. Job well done - thanks Alan.

Up on the Jacks, FK 13337 "Gillian" is in the process of having a steam pipe repair.

Initially the bad section of pipe will have been cut off. John now carefully winds on the die to provide the necessary thread on the projecting length of good pipe.

Tony takes over - a die is often difficult to get started before it begins to bite into the pipe metal. Once the die is on a spanner will be used to provide the necessary torque to enable the thread to be created.

A bit more oil will help. Once the thread has been created the replacement length of pipe can be attached.

Hello, where is Ian going with the 03?

Much of our shutdown maintenance will be focussed on the two main rakes, but there will be things to do with the 3rd Rake as well.

While in the yard, a shot of the completed cover over the pit. Chris and Steven did a good job here.

The 03 pulls out the first three coaches from the 3rd Rake, which were then propelled over to the headshunt on our side of the yard. Plenty of interest was shown by our Santa visitors.

Kevin not only looks after all our storage requirements, but also takes on other jobs which seemingly pass us by. One is to clean the Mess Room windows. Thanks Kevin - a good job!

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So a varied day of activities even though we were a smaller group. For many in the Works the holiday has already started and when they return it will be 2024. 2023 has certainly been quite a year and Alex will be publishing the annual round up of our activities.

We will be back in the Works to finish off the year on Thursday 28th and Saturday 30th.

Thank you Malcolm (in Canada) for your very kind well wishes in the last posting. In turn may we wish both yourself and all our blog readers a very peaceful and enjoyable Christmas.