Tuesday 3rd - No shortage of things to do

Overnight and into the morning there had been a good deal of rain, so outdoor activities would be limited to much later in the day. However there was no shortage of things to be getting on with as far as the wagons and SO 4798 were concerned.

Many thanks to Paul for the extra photos of the progress on the two wagons.

Beginning with SO 4798 David went round the coach grinding down any screwheads that were prominent around the windows.

Richard meanwhile took on the filling and sanding along the rivet line area on the Cotswold side. A lot of work has already been done along here but there is still more to do.

He later moved to the Malvern side and began filling the screw head recesses around the windows.

Pam took on the filling on the Malvern side northend corner from top to bottom.

By the end of the day it was all looking lot better.

Plenty of jobs for Keith in the Paintshop trestle area, beginning with another coat of varnish on the new handrails for the mezzanine stairs in the Workshop and a coat of Executive Light Grey on the beading, which I believe is for the saloon in RBr 1675.

Then back to the light shades from SO 4798. The boxes stacked behind Keith contain all the light fittings for the coach that have so far been repainted and varnished.

Taking a break to watch 3850 come by with Rake 2.

The wagon jobs are gradually being ticked.

The Open C wagon is really looking good now with the final stages of its rebuild well on the way. Chris cuts the excess lengths off the bolts on the Malvern side south corner ...........

[Photo : Paul]  ....... and then repeats the job further along the Malvern side.

The north corner still awaiting its metal cladding.

The completed opposite corner now looking very good.

[Photo : Paul]  The Cotswold side south end with the cross bracing bolts trimmed and primed ready for painting.

[Photo : Paul]   Paul primes the bolts that Chris has trimmed.

[Photo : Paul]

[Photo : Paul]  The final corner section is top coated by Keith. This will be mounted on Saturday.

[Photo : Paul]

Maurice concentrated on second top coating the Malvern side of the MICA van.

He will be coming in Thursday to complete the job, in turn enabling Alex to signwrite this side.

[Photo : Paul]

It is planned to be all change on Saturday with TSO 5023 coming into the Paintshop, with the Open C wagon going outside. The MICA will stay in until completed. Paul spent some time cleaning out the track troughs.

[Photo : Paul]

Lots of ticks at the end of the day.

With the weather rapidly improving I was at last able to get outside and continue working on the Discovery Coach. Initially I wanted to get the heavy ply end board coated in black MIO. This tough paint should help stabilize the ply, the top surface of which is slightly lifting in places. Further work on both ends will be done in turn to smarten them up.

I then completed the dark grey undercoating. The platform side now looks so much better. The next step will be the GW Cream top coating, weather permitting. At the moment both Thursday and Saturday are forecast to be wet, so it may be another week before we can continue.

Working up at the station has both good and not so good benefits - this is definitely one of the former.

Whilst packing up the trolley to return to the Paintshop, the last train of the day headed by the Class 20 passes on its way to Toddington. Steve who owns the loco is driving.

Apologies to Robert and Derek who I missed. Robert was running the last (?) of the Tuesday School "Evacuation Experience" visits for this year. Derek was once again doing the repair work on the Monster Van.