Thursday 7th - Business as usual

 Another busy day at C&W with some essential maintenance on Rake 3 ready for Cheltenham Races next week and of course mainly the continuing rebuild of RBr 1675.

Plenty of Rake 3 activity today with Paul, Dave H., Alan and Roger. Following the rearrangement of the three rakes BCK 21092 remains the brake coach for this rake.

At the south end of 21092 Roger makes repairs to the electrical connection.

Alan poses for the picture. Nice to see the second NYMR coach, SK 24804, also in use - newly repainted SK 25488 is now in Rake 2.

Paul was busy washing floors, here in SK 25341.

Rake 3 will be running for two of the four days of this year's race trains.

Dave was busy cleaning seats in FK 13337 'Gillian'. The well worn seats are in desperate need of re-covering, but currently the coach isn't yet scheduled for a full refurb with so much else to do.

At the south end of SK 24804 Alan assesses what is required to sort out this access door which is not closing properly.

Sadly not the lovely day we had on Tuesday. In this area it started off with drizzle, but this soon passed.

Stripping the north vestibule on SO 4798 has been started, with Tony now continuing the job. This coach will have a full refurb as part of the conversion to first class. 

On board RBr 1675 Ian notes further measurements he has just taken. Roll on the day when this scene becomes a counter with cakes, biscuits and cups of coffee and tea, and being run by our friendly catering staff.

Rex was working on steel covers for the new underframe for the lithium batteries.

The steel covers for the generator underframe on the Malvern side await fitting.

Phil saws off the excess lengths of two bolts on the back of one of the covers for the gas bottle boxes.

So this is what the letters were for - Boxes A and B.

I later captured him cleaning up the inside of box B, located on the Cotswold side. To the left is the frame for the new batteries.

Bob on the inside and Gerry on the outside fitted one of the two remaining window frames on 1675.

[Photo : Gerry]  Trainee window fitter Bob has his first go with the air rivetter.

[Photo : Gerry]  As on Tuesday, I was prepping the  north corridor connection ready for painting. Gerry captured me adding sealant around the rim where it meets the wood supports.

The metal frame, which had earlier been sanded, was then coated in green primer.