Weds 16th/Thurs 17th - Another job jobbed

It might have been quiet on Tuesday, but for Wednesday and Thursday it was back to normal.

Wednesday

Many thanks to Gerry for the photos taken during the day.

Beginning today in Upholstery with Chris holding up another completed cushion. Behind is a pile of completed seat cushions for the Bluebell contract.

Over the past few weeks the corridor in RBr 1675 has gradually shone with the Executive Light Grey top coat going on. David completes the job. There is still a bit to do in the electrics cupboard (by the south entrance), but that whole area now looks very nice. Remaining areas to top coat are the public part of the servery and both ends of the saloon.

The latest coach in the Barn for vacuum checks is SO 4772. There is a leak somewhere, but finding these can be problematic to say the least. Ken and John carefully inspect the south end vacuum hose.

The next stage is looking in the headstock area, in particular behind it where layers of accumulated grime can mask the problem. Stu and John investigate.

More on this tomorrow. 

In the north end of SO 4798 the basic seat frames have been put back after Simon had fitted new side panelling.

Albeit with lighting cables hanging across, a fine portrait of Rex with a piece of window framing.

Photo of Bryan, taken at the same time as the one above. You could join them both up!

Rex, Bryan and Gerry, along with Bob S. , could be called the Window Gang after all the work they are doing on 4798's windows, and of course did with 1675.

Mentioning Bob, here he is cleaning up a section of internal window frame.

Looks like he has enlisted the air brush to clean up this bit of internal window frame and masks up accordingly.

Returning to Rex who is using the milling machine for this new piece of frame.

Later drilling the holes.

John was fabricating new window attachment screws.

Thursday

On now to the following day and my first day back after 2 weeks away. It was a nice sunny day for a change.

Having had to postpone the original date because of bad weather, it was good to see our grit blaster at last able to clean up the very rusty frame of the Open C wagon.

I probably should have taken this end of day photo  before the sun was setting. The wagon appears to be finished, but the equipment is still in place so there may be some cleaning up remaining. The wagon will then be sprayed with primer.

While outside a chance to get onboard FO 3127 and see the progress with the stripping out. All the curtains have been removed and are now under the Paintshop trestles for use as rag - they were in too bad a state to keep and probably not the colours we wished for anyway.  Alan and Roger are wrestling with some screws which are proving difficult to undo.

Dave has moved one of the single seats to allow Phil access to the floor. He is attemting to bore a small hole through which he can insert a cable to provide lighting.

In my Tuesday post I wrote a comment looking forward to the day when we would see 3127 up and running in Crimson & Cream livery with the seats beautifully upholstered in the horsechestnut leaf moquette. I must have been thinking of the NNR's lovely FO 3116 with the same livery and moquette. As with our 3132 'Mary' and SO 4798, we will  actually use a moquette that is unique to the Railway - no decisions have been made yet as to the design or colour.

At the end of the post for Thursday 3rd October, a comment from A Pettifer included a number of questions about 3127. I can answer most but will check with the experts and get back with some fuller answers.

With SO 4790 almost completed we must finish off our work in BCK 21272 as the two will be operational together. Being a lovely day it was good to have a photo of the Cotswold side of the coach for a change.

The next coach in the Paintshop after 4790 will be FK 13326 to complete the partial refurb and get it back to operational status.

Walking back into the Barn to see Stu setting up the vacuum machine in the continuing hunt for the vacuum system leak in 4772. In the end the leak was found behind the headstock at the south end. To access it properly John had to remove the toilet at that end.

Over to the Barn through road and SO 4798. The north end and areas around the windows that have been repaired can now be added to the Paintshop teams list of things to do.

As for the south end, this could be some time yet!

The new underwindow panelling for the first four windows on the Cotswold side, now ready for filler.

Spotted this lump of window sealant on the platform below where the latest window had been reinstated. Now what did it remind me of? Then I remembered one of my favourite sci fi writers Eric Frank Russell. His 1950s story Mesmerica, from Men, Martians and Machines, had aliens like this.

The Window team working on the last of the four on the Cotswold side.

Gerry and Rex are adding the securing screws.

[Photo : Gerry]  While Gerry takes the photos, Bryan takes over.

[Photo : Gerry]  Bryan scraping off the sealant which probably produced "the alien" on the trestle.

[Photo : Gerry]  A view from the south compartment. Henry is now in use - think this may be the missing one from the Wagon team!

The weather forecast for the Saturday shunt is wet and we don't want rain pouring through open or incomplete windows.

Into the Workshop and RBr 1675 where Richard I is installing a water connection to the ovens - this is to enable their cleaning.

Phil is setting up one of the supports for the ground level heating pipe covers. This will be for the corridor.

Towards the end of the day both Phil and Jeff were after new jobs. I immediately suggested the RBr, where Phil took on some ceiling top coating in the public servery area, while Jeff did some varnishing underneath the pelmet boards. The sprung wires for the curtains had been put in place, but were first carefully removed.

Richard II was busy setting up a switching unit. For the RBr? No, for the Santa lights in the Tim Mitchell Building. 

Moving on to the MICA van with a whole load of planks for Maurice to prime.

If the van has to go out in the rain for a while on Saturday, then some additional preserver on any raw wood is well worth adding.

Then back to some more undercoating of the steel frame.

So what's running today? The DMU appears round Chicken curve, runs through the yard and into the station. Then with tokens exchanged, while the DMU heads off for Cheltenham, 3850 comes by with the Toddington - Broadway train. Being a somewhat busy day this was almost all I saw of Thursday's trains.

Finally into the Paintshop to capture the progress and hopefully finish of the work on SO 4790. The remaining jobs were to add the second coat of varnish to the upper Malvern side, rub down and revarnish where we had some visible runs on the Cotswold side double doors, and do any other minor bits of paint snagging. 

Bob pours a good helping of varnish on to the old tights stretched across the kettle. Notice he has a 2 inch brush, not the 3 inch Alex suggested. Actually if he had been varnishing the bottom panel instead of the short interwindow panels he said he would have opted for the larger brush.

The Master at work. 

While Bob worked from the centre to the south end, Jeff went in the same direction from the north end.

Now for those runs. Phil very carefully sands with 320 paper as we don't want to go through and affect the crimson. Thankfully it went well and most of runs were removed or minimised. The door panels were then recoated.

Phil replaces the communication cord flag with a better one.

And so we are finished with 4790.  Job jobbed!

Three happy volunteers. Happy with a job well done.

And so to the next one.