Thursday 25th - A short miscellany

Keith and I spent much of Thursday getting the Works ready for the Rail 200 weekend, so just a few miscellaneous photos taken during the day.

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However first a catch up from last Thursday with five photos taken by Roger of the seating repairs installed by Alan and himself in SK 25488 while on the train to Cheltenham. The new side panels had been made by Upholstery.

The photos show the before and after. We don't have any of the existing moquette available so Laura selected the plain blue which blends in nicely. The repairs were luckily made in time before little fingers started playing with the tears.

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Now on to this Thursday 

On Wednesday a large consignment of DMU seats arrived from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. The next and the sixth contract for Upholstery.

Meanwhile Laura and the team had set up another fine display of cushions, glasses cases and a bag ready for sale during the weekend. There was only the one bag available as Glyn had popped in on Tuesday and grabbed an armful for our shops. The endless sales continue to amaze us.

This lovely little chair came from our Coffee Pot Cafe on Winchcombe Station. With the seat needing a new wood base I guess it's a combined job for Upholstery and Woodwork. 

Definitely going green! Maurice has been steadily working on the underframe of BR/MOD vanwide 4207, now the weedspraying wagon, cleaning it up and coating it in green primer. A really thorough job!

Phil has stripped down and serviced the track for the connection slider from RMB 1876. A mucky job, hence the gloves.

Meanwhile the very lengthy bodyside and door/doorframe preparation continues with 1876. Pam was having a good go at the Cotswold side south doorframe on both Saturday and Tuesday, while today Jeff tackles the centre door. Repairs made are using initially fibrepaste, topped up with standard filler.

With the initial fibrepaste filling sanded down along the rivet line, Ainsley adds standard filler to finish off.

The sanding down seems endless, but the results are good and need to be so if we are to replicate the excellent finish achieved for TSO 5023, which has gone on hire to the Bucks Railway Centre. Bob spent the day on more of the Malvern side. As before I finished off the day giving the surrounding floor a thorough going over with the Henry.

I have to confess that I didn't feel like running around taking photos on either Saturday or Tuesday, hence no blog posts. Instead it was a treat to be able to concentrate on and complete a very well worth and very necessary job on 1876. The Cotswold half of the roof accessible from the excellent Lewis tower has had all the loose paint scraped off (Stu's tungsten carbide scraper is a gem for this) and then wire brushed and hand sanded. A wipe over with thinners or white spirit and then it can be painted in the Light Grey MIO.

Something completely different. With the old Building Services hut now completely cleared away, a sound concrete base has been left and an ideal location for the greenhouse belonging to the Friends of Winchcombe Station Maintenance Dept. Midsommer Norton Station on the old Somerset and Dorset Railway had a splendid greenhouse and were always winning the Best Kept Station award for the line (and it's still there on the restored station).

A change for Roger from the good work done by the Indoor Gang. Part of the roof has to be rebuilt at the same time as the glass panes are inserted.

So what goodies will be emerging from here in the future? The station is already very colourful.

I guess this came from inside the old building (?). Memories of our extension when it was steadily advancing towards Broadway.

With the day's cleaning jobs done, Paul watches one of the late afternoon trains depart behind "Foremarke Hall".