Saturday 31st - The calm after the gala

 After an incredibly busy weekend last week, it was nice to just steadily progress with various projects today.

Starting off with the wagons as we have one more week before we bring a coach in again. Maurice spent the day doing various second top-coating on the Mica.

Chris, Robert and I had a crack at fitting the corner plates on the Open C, which went well, definitely looking the part now.

It wasn't long before the bolts were all trimmed to length too.

One corner plate hadn't had its holes drilled yet so I took care of that with the mag drill. It just needs everything deburring before painting and fitting.

Paul followed behind us with the primer and later grey so it's really all looking the part now, save the buffers which will wait until after the next shunt before taking off the rest for investigation.

One other job was the salvage a spare brake handle off the spare Open C chassis in the yard as our one was missing one. This came off with relatively little fuss in the end, and left on the metalwork bench for straightening during the week, along with the door banger plates which need modifying.

With the gala over, it was over to the cleaning team to tidy everything up in rakes 3 and 4. Jenny took rake 4...

While Paul and Dennis took rake 3 - I did try and find them but they weren't there for a photo, I got sent this instead as an example of what needed to be tidied up. Later in the day Stuart and I split rake 4 up and put it back in the sidings, it's next needed for the diesel gala in July.

It was just Dave and Bob on the Discovery coach today, and with wet weather forecast during the week this might be it for a little while, but nonetheless it's coming along well with most of the side in undercoat now.

Back inside and work on 4798 continues, Simon cutting plywood for the floor while Andy was attending to some metalwork on the end.

Just a small plate needed for repair.

The South end at the end of the day, ready for the corridor connection to go on I think.

As soon as that's done the one on 1876 can come off - in the meantime Alan and Vic continued their work with new patches being welded in where needed.

Onto the RBr then, and up in the air allowed John to sort out some pipework underneath.

While Phil and Andy were attending to some electrical gubbins I think.

After all that and getting home there was ample time for a gentle cycle out to the mainline station at Cheltenham to watch Clun Castle come through. GWSR volunteers littered the lineside between Gloucester and Birmingham, all texting to see if it had come past yet!