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Showing posts from July, 2024

Tuesday 30th - Back from foreign climes

 Well, back from North Wales anyway, where many small railways were sampled, of which more in a bit.

But first, a productive day despite the heat.


Starting off in the RBr, I was disappointed to find it hadn't been finished off in my absence, come on chaps! Robert started the day with the router on the window pelmets.


Later on he and Chris were permanently fitting some of the beading on the lower panels. You hold, I'll glue...


Then on it goes, a nail gun helped persuade it to stay.


Elsewhere Richard had the honour of doing the first bit of varnishing in the saloon interior. These panels will be partially covered by the trim pieces that bridge between each pelmet, so a couple of coats of varnish before they're partially obscured.


Further down the corridor there was a bit of sanding that needed doing on one of the internal door frames taken care of by Roger.


Kevin found a good job on a hot day, sitting down! These are all the old glass shelves from the RBr, we've changed the interior so these aren't required any more but they're still being labelled and going into storage, you never know when they might be useful.


In the barn it was the pad sander symphony with Stu, Ian and yours truly on the case. The Malvern side is almost all done bar some fiddly bits round the window sliders, meanwhile the Cotswold side is well on the way.


After a week's break from me cracking the whip on the wagons, Maurice set to filling the screw holes on the first section of planking on the Mica. Forgive me Churchward for I have sinned, with several hundred screws to hold the planks in, I opted for modern pozidrive screws, but deeply countersunk and filled no one will ever see.


Later on there was a much grottier job to make a start on, cleaning and painting the spoked wheels, Paul and Maurice took a set each and did what they could. At some point we'll have to nudge the wagon along half a turn or so.


Speaking of grotty, Dave spent some time on the leather straps for the ladders in the BCK, which were in a pretty grotty state. various methods were used to clean them up and by the end of the day they were looking a bit more presentable.


Out in the coach Pam continued the repaint of the guard's compartment, working her way around various fiddly bits and pieces.


Certainly a hot day to be on the footplate, particularly on P&O, but they were a happy smiling crew nonetheless.

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In some ways a bit of a busman's holiday, as no fewer than 6 railways visited in 8 days, but it was still a welcome break from the usual.


Following on from day 1 at Welshpool, there was just time the next morning to admire the old mainline station building with a panoramic picture (hence the apparent curve!), now a shop and restaurant since the original alignment was moved to accommodate a bypass. Rather a grand building for a relatively modest market town. 


Next railway stop was Porthmadog for phase 1, Welsh Highland Railway. The long tourist trains are all in the charge of these powerful South African NG15 class Garratts.


Nope, spent enough money, I am but a poor and humble student (well, graduate awaiting a job start I suppose now!) These newbuild narrow gauge Pullmans are extremely impressive and look very comfortable. Amazing craftsmanship has gone into them.


Standard class was in crimson & cream, nice! As we passed a service from Carnarvon at Rhyd Ddu in the charge of another NG15.


The scenery really is stunning on this railway, and the trains so long and the line so twisty you can get some great views of the train you're on.


One for Dave, at Dinas we passed replica Lyd on a shorter shuttle train.


At Carnarvon with the very old and the very new, Castle built 1283, brand new terminus station built 2019. Not very heritage, but I suppose that's not so important here.


Our Garratt ran round and took water while we did a lap of the Castle walls.


Soon after return to Porthmadog we had a first sight of the unique Double Fairlie design on a rake of vintage Ffestiniog stock, very nice!


Worthy of mention the trip back to base was via the Cambrian Coast line, itself another very scenic line, a quick snap of Barmouth bridge which has recently undergone extensive work. I'm off to join Network Rail's graduate civil engineering programme in September, this is the sort of thing I might be involved in.

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The weather turned distinctly Welsh for the day down to Aberystwyth. Vale of Rheidol is pure great Western, except, oh! Another SAR Garratt. Oi, that's taking the work of a local Rheidol tank!


Ah that's better, we'll have one of those thank you.


Before that though, a site appreciation. Very smart new brick built station entrance building, I could be convinced that was GWR.


Where bricks couldn't be justified, there were several pre-fab buildings in GWR style wrinkly tin. Definitely much better than a B&Q shed...


A look inside the newly opened museum in the old former engine shed was well worthwhile (and crucially, dry!) Very appropriately Dukedog 9017 was on loan from Bluebell, this was its home shed back in the day. 4ft gauge 'Fire Queen' from Penrhyn faces it.


We humble Mk1 preservationists bow down in honour to this stunning restored Isle of Man coach. absolutely flawless.


Ah, a GWR wagon, we know about those... 


Before we left Palmerston on loan from F&WHR trotted by with a short test set, that was fun.


We clattered up the line in the railway's original 1930s carriages. We braved the open on the way up despite the weather...


But retreated to an enclosed version for the way down. It's lovely to have original engines on original carriages on their original line, and all in superb condition. They too have a set in choc & cream and a set in crimson & cream! The latter was supposedly reserved for corridor stock in BR days but it is nonetheless authentic I believe, Someone must have made an executive decision in Aberystwyth back in the day!


At Devil's Bridge Kerr Stuart 'Wren was doing driver experience on an isolated siding, great idea!


After the obligatory waterfall and devil's bridge walk, we returned behind the Garratt, which did at least afford the opportunity to grab a photo of No.8 as we passed it again at Aberffrwd.

Part 2 to follow!

Monday 29th - A Different Hat

 

Derek and friends

But before that the normal Monday cleaning routine.

28ºC! Warm inside the carriages, but I was outside! Despite regular brushing the windows still attract a layer of fine grit over time. So today it was window washing with Fairy Liquid using a sponge pad. That was rake 1 on the shady side in platform 1. Fortunately Jane took pity on me and came to help on the last 3 carriages. About 60 windows in total.

That meant I was too busy to photo the rest of the team, other than doing what we do best - Tea Break! Holidays and Covid reduced us to 12 today - David, Jane, Kath, Nick, Nigel, Paul, Peter, Rich, Roger C, Tim and Val.

Thursday 25th July

Last Thursday was the first of this year's Teddy Bear Thursdays. Here are two of our own bears ready to drive us to Winchcombe. They were very excited!


We work with Phil and Sue P on this but this year we also managed to rope in Greg and Lynn from our Cleaning Team to help. Here they are chatting to Kath at the start.


Some of the bears





Toy trains



And the real thing


The clues for the Treasure Hunt (certificate on successful completion) brings you around the back of the Discovery Coach. Oh dear! Winter project?


The bears enjoyed it so much (and so did the adults) that we will repeat on 1st and 8th August. Come and say hello (and bring your Teddy Bears)!

Saturday 27th - Contrasting days

Quite a large number attending today with work going on throughout the Works and out in the yard. Unusually the exception was Upholstery which remained unattended all day. 

Beginning with SO 4790 where some good progress was made.

Martin continued the filling and sanding work on both sides of the coach.

While a coach is available you grab every opportunity to do repairs. John and James are repairing some of the pipework underneath. The thumbs up from James is a good sign that all is well, and this work also gives him a break from welding.

Bob cleans up more of the Cotswold side of the roof.


Hey, you ask, this is a quick repaint, what's going on?! The panelling at the end was badly buckled, and when investigating the gutter area above it was easy to see why. Alan is an expert welder and by the time I took the photo he had already repaired the roof section and was busy welding it on place.

Returning later, the buckled section was in the process of being removed.

Stu displays the corrosion on the back of the removed section.


It wasn't long before the area for repair had been cleaned up ready for Alan to weld in a new sheet.

Out now to BCK 21272 in the yard where Dave is in the luggage area and masking up in preparation for repainting the bottom section.


Pam was well into applying cream top coat in the guards compartment, continuing the job started by Phil on Thursday. This will be a time consuming job with all the complexity of this area.

George had done a great job cleaning up the metal window frames in the luggage area and guards corridor, and has now started on the frames in the passenger corridor.

Another timely job being done by Paul and Dennis was to recheck the toilet tanks.


Returning to Pam near the end of the day to find she had covered quite a bit with the cream paint. Still a lot to do, but this end of the coach is now looking so much better with all the grime cleaned away and replaced by new paint.

Ainsley refits the upper back panel on this door on FK 13326.

Ian uses Stu's wonderful tungsten carbide scraper to remove all the old paint and grime from this vacuum cylinder.

And here it is with the black MIO painting almost finished. Stu had been in conversation with Ian and started to rise as I took the photo.


Tom and Mark are making new sections of window frame, which I guess will be for SO 4798. Tom is using the mini rebating machine.

Two members of the Diesel Dept were having a look round the Works. I caught them with Tom and Mark.

With all the things going on elsewhere in the Works, as well as meeting up with an old work colleague and her partner, I managed to miss Robert and Chris completing the panelling in RBr 1675's corridor. However, here is the south end, all ready to paint. We have just added more tins of wood primer to our paint stock, which is just as well as we are certainly going to need it.

With guidance from Richard I, granddaughter Nicole is adding the pipework for the taps to the large skid in the kitchen.



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Now a complete change from all the activity at Winchcombe to the peace and tranquility of Kelmscott, West Oxfordshire the day before. 


Kelmscott Manor was the rented home of William Morris and his family in the late 1800s and on to 1938 when his daughter May Morris died. He did also have a home in London.

William Morris is of course very much associated with the Arts and Crafts movement and as such the Manor is home to many of the designs of wallpapers and textiles for which he is famous. The Manor is now owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London.



Views from the extensive attic. Photography inside is allowed, but having been here a number of times in the past I was content just to look around. It was quite dark in many of the rooms, presumably to prevent fading of the many exhibits.


After the self conducted tour and an excellent lunch, next on the agenda is a leisurely stroll round the garden, ...........


........ where you may come across Horatio, the Manor cat. Horatio arrived on a narrowboat on its way up the nearby Thames and during the stopover, discovered the Manor and decided to stay.


Finally, on leaving the Manor, a short walk  down the track to view the Thames.


Next stop Lechlade.


Walking back through Kelmscott is delightful. I love these stone slab walls, very much a feature of the eastern Cotswolds.