Weds 22nd / Thurs 23rd - Running up to the gala

Thank you for the kind compliments at the end of Tuesday's post. It's good to know that the blog is enjoyed by many. It makes it all well worth while, as well of course as providing a record of our activities. In the office I keep a back up of all the photos I have taken since September 2011 when Peter Bennett first set up a C & W blog. Including photos contributed by other members of C & W, the total is in excess of 28000 (over 8 GBytes). 

Wednesday

This part actually comprises a selection of photos taken by Gerry for Wednesdays 8th, 15th and 22nd October. The photos are not in date order.

Chris, Ceri, Laura and Eve busy stripping DMU seats from the NYMR.

Nick, Trevor and Bob working on the large warflat wagon which has been repositioned on the road siding alongside the Barn.

Simon working on the vestibule entrance floor at the north end of RMB 1876.

Ken working on parts of the passcom mechanism from SO 4798.

Russ sanding an internal window frame in 4798.

Ben in the reconstructed Malvern side toilet compartment in 4798 - not sure what he is doing. Another job for the Painting and Prep team will be to apply several coats of varnish to the walls and window frame in here.

The grid doors for the weed spraying wagon have been fabricated and fitted by Bryan, Rex, (and Gerry).

Ben priming the underframe.

A general view of the Workshop from the mezzanine.

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Thursday

Stu had a number of shunts to do during the day, one of which was to remove the GUV and replace it with the Mink D van. This not only gets the van into the dry but clears what will be the viewing area during the weekend's gala. The bogies originally under the GUV and destined for SO 4798 are in the foreground.

Maurice continues the black glossing of the weed spraying wagon underframe.

[Photo : Paul W.]  Roger, our Works H & S head, doing his weekly safety inspection. The new deck of the weed spraying wagon provides a handy table.

[Photo : Paul W.]  Richards I and II working out how they are going to put the power on to the split coach sets - the gala rakes 3 and 4.

Meanwhile Alan and Geoff (Indoor Gang) were intending to replace some more seat side panels in SK 25488, running in Rake 2, but there were too many passengers.

On to RMB 1876 with Ainsley back on windows, finishing off the greying up.

Richard concentrated on patch painting the sanded areas of secondary filling on the south half of the Cotswold side.

Phil was back to roof painting. 

Back to Richard who is progressing well. The edges of the centre door will be next.

Jeff was at the north end of the Malvern side.

Apologies for the excess of photos for RMB 1876 but a lot of gala preparation was done in the Paintshop and as such activities on the coach were easy to capture.

Richards I and II are real sports, happily setting up the light comparison display for the fourth time this year. A quick test and it works a treat. 

Thankfully the predicted bad weather didn't hit us anything like that predicted, so I was able to get a lot of the outside gala bits set up, and of course almost all of the internal bits ready for the Saturday opening. 

Stu had moved the container opposite S & T's old area. Rose now rakes over the whole area. It means a longer barrier to set up for the gala, but it's all a lot neater and part of the planned reorganisation of the front yard area.

And how is the greenhouse coming on? Pretty good actually, no wonder Rose looks happy. 

The violets in particular have a lovely smell.

Tuesday 21st - One million, not out!

Sometime during the evening of Sunday 18th October our overall viewings total passed the one million mark.  Alex set up the current blog in September 2020 so this amazing total has been achieved in just over five years.

Viewing the blog statistics for midday Wednesday 22nd October: -

All time : 1002635

Today : 175

Yesterday : 614

This month : 13348

Last month : 22435

Number of posts : 1046

Number of comments : 2035

Coverage is literally worldwide.

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From Alex and the blogging team, many thanks to all our readers for your support and very kind compliments over the past five years.

Here's to the next five!

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Just a few scattered photos today as I was busy with work on RMB 1876 and beginning the preparation for this coming weekend's Autumn Showcase gala, the last of our regular running before the November race weekend and the Santa Specials for the run up to Christmas.

 

The day began as always with our early cuppa and chat in the Mess Room. Robert was dressed ready for another Schools WW2 Evacuation Experience day and, having just got in after his 80 mile drive from Pontypridd, was enjoying his cup of tea and bacon bap (reheated in the microwave).

Bacon baps are always enticing hence the hand reaching out! Never mind Maurice, the griddle on Platform 1 will be up and running again over the gala weekend.

Oh dear, how did this happen?! Of the twin doors into the Woodshop it looks like something crashed into the bolted one and in so doing badly damaged the top section. Chris has begun the repairs which hopefully can be completed on Saturday.

Tony continues the black glossing of the chassis on the weed spraying wagon.

Paul cleans up one of the good planks at the south end of the Mink D van, while Maurice power brushes the headstock.

1876 is certainly providing a lot of work. Phil attaches the internal stops for the centre door droplight on the Cotswold side.

Robert uses a template to assess what is required to repair the liner on the Malvern side south door.

David and I (when I wasn't running around doing other things) spent much of the day trying to get the final secondary filling and sanding completed on the Cotswold side. We managed that and then got the north half patch painted where required.

Ainsley meanwhile got the Malvern side wiped down and greyed up the window frames.

Phil kept Keith busy with a seemingly endless supply of toilet compartment bits from SO 4798 for varnishing and painting - window frames, shelf bits, waste bins. No doubt there will be yet more to come.

For Keith and I it was back to gala preparation, basically getting the many aspects stored ready for assembly and mounting on Thursday and first thing Saturday. The predicted weather for Thursday is not good so preparation will be mainly internal, with the outside stuff set up on Saturday. Hopefully the weather will be kinder over the weekend.

Monday 20th - Almost A Full House

After last week's thin attendance we were up to 15 today.  The trains have obviously been busy, which is good, add to that the wet weather leaves dirtier floors then it was good to have a full turnout.

Today it was rake 2 in platform 1, rake 1 in platform 2, and both pulled down so that the north end carriages were on the platform and could have their windows washed on the platform sides, first time since 18th August!

Before I went through rake 1 with a GTech I had time to take a few photos.

Long Tall Steve

Kath

John S and ghostbuster

Val (left) and Jane

Nigel

As I mentioned above the floors were dirtier so both rakes were mopped throughout.

Escaping the camera were Chris, David, Greg, John M, Lynn, Paul, Peter and Rich.

I gave the good news to the team that as we are running one train next February half term, carriage cleaning starts again on February 16th, not March!

Saturday 18th - Another special day

Today was another special one for both C & W and the Railway as a whole when we said our final goodbye to Bob Mack. The last coach of the first Cheltenham train was reserved for Bob's family and members of the Railway who wished to attend. On the return journey Bob's ashes were placed in 3850's firebox and a long whistle blown.

Everyone detrained on arriving at Winchcombe and made their way to the viewing area between the signalbox and the Works. Here Richard spoke about Bob's amazing life with the Railway, literally from the start of the GWSR and all the roles he took on. Gillian, Bob's wife, followed with a moving tribute to him and unveiled the plaque that had been mounted on the fence.

Afterwards Richard gave the party a guided tour of the Works where Bob spent many happy hours on the days he was with us and not elsewhere on the Railway in one of his many other roles.

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Happy memories of Bob doing his favourite job in C & W. How we wish he was still with us.

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 Now on to the day's activities.

Firstly RMB 1876 where Tony is continuing the secondary filling and sanding where still required on the Cotswold side.

The Malvern side sanding wasn't quite completed as I thought on Thursday, so Ainsley takes this in hand beginning with some further work on a window frame.

Meanwhile back to the Cotswold side where Martin completes the repairs I was doing on the south door frame with a coat of light grey undercoat.

Back to the Malvern side where Bob begins greying up window frames.

Pam is back on the frame of the Malvern side central door.

The Malvern side south end doorframe needs more attention. Robert works out and measures up what is required. However we first needed to remove a section of capping strip, which Ainsley subsequently took care of.

Another repair, this time at the opposite end where Robert has replaced a broken bit of beading on the door liner.

The north end of the coach with the floors out in both toilet compartments and the corridor.

Dave assists Phil with loading a cleaned up sink.

A visit to Upholstery where Laura is checking the final bit of the fourth contract from the Forest of Dean Railway.

Jane pauses while spray glueing the soft lining fabric to the foam filling.

Robert works in the Malvern side toilet compartment in SO 4798 preparing the window space for more hardwood frame.

John is back to creating more pins for our freight wagons.

Clive begins blacking the underframe on the weed spraying wagon.

BSK 35308 is the first coach on the Railway destined to go into blue and grey livery. Before it goes to the Diesel Dept for repainting we are undertaking some bodywork repairs.

James is currently working on one of the Cotswold doors and side panelling. Below he is recreating the base plate for the bottom hinge.

The wagon team are having a major exploration with Mink D 28833 to assess the state of the planking. I suggested putting chalk crosses on the bad planks.

Maurice and Paul began today's work with a combination of scraping and hot air gun.

Tony worked on one of the steps using a combination of anglegrinder and hammer.

Maurice holds up the first one removed to be kept as a template.

Then followed more cleaning up of the frame.

I made a tour of the van so far assessed. There are an awful lot of chalk crosses.

Maurice watches the last train of the day on the final section to Toddington.