Saturday 9th - Busy with visitors

 A very busy day, with some esteemed visitors, and I had to leave after lunch, so a slightly disjointed blog but we'll see how we go.

Alan was quick off the mark taking a took at the North end of 4798. Good news here as the limited repairs required don't even need the corridor connection removing.

And so it wasn't long before the welding was in full swing, a nice early win for this project. The same can't be said for the South end, no intrusive investigation is required there to tell it's not good news!

More fitting out in the RBr, Phil...

And Simon continue.

"How's it going Robert?"   -   "Slowly."

The filling and sanding continued on the Malvern side today with Jeff and Tony working away. We are getting there, and we've already made more improvement than I thought possible when first looking at it all!

John was back on the milling machine "Same picture again?"

He did say he hoped to be finished with these door guides by the end of today.

Maurice had had the week off on the wagon but he was back in today with the final few bits to do, last bit of roof painting here.

In between trains the third rake was briefly dragged out of the siding by the 03 for loading of guinness, champagne etc. ready for the race trains during the week.

While taking a wonder up the station it was pleasing to see the Friends of Winchcombe had made significant progress with their poster project, after a little initial nudge by me and some help with the digital prep side they've done a great job of brightening the station up and improving the heritage atmosphere, well done!

My sum achievement in the morning with everything else going on was limited to doing this noticeboard for Broadway. As I have to paint right to left being of a sinistral persuasion someone (probably Phil!) commented at just this moment whether I'd got a bit lost!

Much of the morning Dave Stu and I spent giving a tour of the works to the Timmins family. If you know anything about railway heritage painting, this was a bit of a big deal for us, as far as I'm concerned we just play at it, they're the real deal! Anyway, they were extremely impressed with all of our facilities, the last time Bob and Ralph were here was to do City of Truro circa 2010, we've come on a long way since then. Another visit with a train ride has been promised.

Also touring today was a couple of chaps from the West Somerset Railway, forgive me I didn't get their names or purpose. We all ended up bumping into each other in upholstery as we explained their recent revenue-earning exploits.

After all that excitement I had to leave in the afternoon to attend to family duties, denied the continued opportunity to sameple the particularly good range of cake on offer in the mess room today. But Dave took some more pictures and sent them on.

 Simon had put trim strips on the ceiling in the RBr pantry area. Contractors coming in to do the proprietary panelling some time in April apparently.

George got the grubby job of cleaning out the old gas bottle boxes.

Meanwhile on the FK good progress as Ken fits the end woods.

Outside Paul was filling the toilet tanks on the third rake.

While Dave was giving one of our storage BGs some tlc with some old paint.

Foremarke Hall was out on test today having had a tender bearing change during the week, so we took advantage and kidnapped it into C&W sidings to do a steam heat test of 4798. 

All connected up... No pic of the result, but a report of "Stu had to ask Clive [the driver] to turn it off - so many leaks Stu couldn't see where they were!" Some time on the jacks will be necessary then...

The other job for the dirty gang was to give the second elk a once over on the jacks.

They're a bit tricky to get up in the air as they're so low down, but they sorted it.

Chris also sent some finished pics of the Cotswold Halt bar:

It looks brilliant, and a great achievement in such a short space of time. Well done to everyone in C&W who did their bit, above and beyond the call of duty!

Finally, I was asked a little while ago to provide an update on the water tank at Toddington. We have made some progress on our Wednesday evening wagons.

All the tie rods and hoops have had new bar machined and threaded, Mark welded them onto the original rods/hoops.

We did a little test fit of the first couple to see how they went together. This one fitted pretty well. One will need a little heat to bend a bit more.

While at Toddington, we've also been finishing off starfish 30500 as we wanted to get some paint on the interior. and scrub and a clean was first followed by primer.

Last week we got the topcoat out, with a mix of some various leftover shades of bauxites/browns chucked in together to do the floor.

Greg did a great job on the floor, but with Rich and I doing the side doors as well, "Err, how am I supposed to get down guys!?"

Bit of a disjointed blog but hopefully you can see we're as busy as usual on lots of fronts!