Monday 4th - Here The Cleaning Team Go Again
First day back and a bit of re-orienteering required! Much of the electricals from the shed I had stored at home, so first job was to re-install all that, hence I missed taking many photos!
There are 8 carriages in the rake at present, in anticipation of Race Trains. But 2 of them are off the north end of the platform, so they did not get washed. One of them is locked out of use so that didn't get cleaned. All done by tea break!
After that it was down to the DMU. Rich had good business fly swatting with the ghost buster
Anyone around over the opening weekend would have seen the DMU running as a 4 car set, I believe because one of the Driving Motor vehicles was on test. This meant that W51360 at the north end was effectively double heading and there was no corridor connection the the Driving Motor behind it. This meant moving up to the guards door to access W51360 separately - but it was stuck! Top part moved a bit but the bottom was well and truly stuck, so we had to abandon our attempt to clean that.
Next week no cleaning for us as contractors are in for Race Week. Back on 18th March.
Loving the Neapolitan rakes at present....not, what a mess the rakes are now.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason for this was explained in a previous blog post. There is some authenticity in it too. There are many colour photos in BR days showing a couple of coaches in different liveries, especially when BR was changing coaching stock from Carmine & Cream to Maroon. I am not old enough to remember that myself though! In the late 1950s the WR used chocolate and cream for the main "inter city" services but that didn't prevent choc & cream coaches turning up on local services. I have a colour photo taken at Notgrove Station on the Kingham Branch on 15 Sep 1962 (not long before closure of the line) showing a 41xx loco (No 4100) with the usual two coaches, one being a nicely turned out choc and cream Mk 1, the other being in the more usual maroon. I agree though, that for the type of services the GWSR runs for most of the time, the Choc & Cream set would be much more prototypical. I guess this will happen as coaches go through the works at Winchcombe for repairs and repainting, just like they would in the 1950s and early 1960s. Great to see the GWSR up and running again for 2024.
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