Saturday 8th - A major shunt

A very busy Saturday and thankfully warmer than of late, in particular because of the major shunt taking place.

Many thanks to Tom, Paul E. and Paul W. for extra photos.

Today was the day of the big shunt to reorganise the first rake as far as possible in preparation for the new season which begins on Saturday 1st March. With Clive and Andy Th. attending the annual Guards/TTIs meeting in the Tim Mitchell Building, it was left to Ian on the 03 and Andy Tu. as shunter. After lunchtime the others were able to join in and the shunting party was back to full strength.

Newly outshopped FK 13326 and another chocolate and cream coach are shunted towards the Barn to clear the headshunt.

I later went outside and captured Rake 2 being slowly propelled towards the station.

With limited space and a large fleet of coaches it takes a lot of planning to get everything in the required position.

The complex shunting plan. It took all day but it was all successfully achieved.

In the quiet of the Upholstery shop Laura and Richard are re-covering more seat cushions for the current Dean Forest Railway contract.

A veritable barricade ready for collection.

[Photo : Tom]  In the Woodwork shop Robert, Alan and Simon are making adjustments to the large saw.

The maroon RMB is now on the jack road. The refurbished vacuum cylinders have been attached and now it's the turn of some bodywork repairs

Alan carefully removes the leaking corner section of roof at the north end.

At the opposite end of the Barn James continues the rebuilding of the south end of SO 4798.

Towards the centre of the coach George pad sands more of the Cotswold side. There has been quite a number of sanding sessions on this side of the coach, working around the green primed areas.

With the rebuilding of the window frames, internal repanelling, bodywork repairs at the south end and general bodyside sanding, as many as 7-8 staff can be working on 4798, whereas the work on RBr 1675 is currently limited to a much small number doing internal jobs. As such a very sensible suggestion has been made for the two coaches to swap locations until 1675 can eventually move into the Paintshop. 

It was good to see Jenny and husband Andy back in following their turn to have this wretched cold bug that is currently circulating. I didn't manage to capture Jenny doing her cleaning work, but instead caught her doing the washing up! However Paul was able to take some photos of her.

[Photo : Paul W.]  The clock in the changing room/store has been out of action for ages (broken?). Jenny displays the new (?) one .........

[Photo : Paul W.]  ........ and then mounts it.

On now to the MICA van with Robert working on the south end vent and securing the side sections.

Maurice and Paul are sorting out door hinges.

More help needed with the south end vent.

John completes the second label box for the MICA.

Finally on to progress with TSO 4986. Prior to the Guards/TTIs meeting Alex had time to get the chalk outlines for the coach number in place, initially on the Cotswold side .......

....... and then on the Malvern side. While Alex was away at his meeting we had to be careful not to touch these!

Tony did a great job in top coating in crimson the sides and backs of the doors and the doorframes

 

 

Bob and I removed all the line tapes and then began repairing the lines where required, initially doing the yellow band.

[Photo : Paul E.]   On both sides of the coach all the yellow band was repaired and the black where possible.

On board Paul initially vacuumed all the seats .....

...... and then washed the floor throughout.

 

 

[Photo : Paul W.] 

 

[Photo : Paul W.]  I continued the minor improvements to the central cream section.

 

[Photo : Paul E.]  Alex added the initial coat of paint to the numbers and then was able to clear up most, if not all, of the black sections of line needing repair as the yellow paint had dried.