2025 roundup

It's that time of year again, a chance to look back on what we've done over the last 12 months. As ever, so much work goes on that it becomes a real challenge to fully capture it, but hopefully I've got the main highlights.

Going right back to the beginning of the season and just about counting as 2025, FK 13326 entered service after a substantial rebuild of both ends - it being a 'quick repaint' between the inner door pillars! This had been languishing in the works for a couple of years so it was great to finally have it in service. It was also distinguished by having the proper BR coach emblem roundels applied, a new policy for chocolate and cream coaches.

TSO 4986 initially only came in the works briefly for some winter maintenance work but we soon started plotting. the lower chocolate panels were suffering from cracked filler and we began wondering what we could achieve in the short shut down period. After a bit of umming and ahhing, we took the plunge and decided we could squeeze in a partial repaint to crimson and cream, thus giving us a bonus coach in our set 2 repaint project. A little bit of overtime was required in the end but well worth it.

The vehicle that dominated most of the year has once again been RBr 1675, but it is finally more or less finished, beta testing going on over the Christmas period in service.

At many points it felt like we'd never finish this. Initial stripping out began in Autumn 2021 with work starting properly Spring 2022, so it's been a long old job, but we've finally got there. The interior has come out very nicely with the oak panelling.

Meanwhile the kitchen is fully fitted out with modern equipment and surfaces, powered by battery and generator. Inevitably a few teething issues have been picked up, but it has cooked and sold its first bacon rolls after Christmas, so success!

Onto some wagons then, and another rather long running saga, GWR Mica B 79636. This was definitely a much more complicated restoration than initially thought, but we got there in the end. The newly fabricated end handrails were a particularly pleasing feature to restore.

GWR Open C 99879 was another substantial rebuild and restoration, albeit slightly more planned that way, being our first wagon restoration direct from scrapyard condition in some time. The wagon was fully stripped back to a bare frame and grit-blasted before being rebuilt, with new timber, new corner plates, re-metalled bearings on the South axle, and one replacement buffer.

A slightly more straightforward project was a repaint and refresh of GWR starfish 100839, this project undertaken by the youth group. They did a great job!

All 3 wagons were shunted into the goods train on the first day of our Railway200 gala, giving us our longest consist in quite some time at 15 wagons, excellently captured here by Kieran Hardy coming out of Greet tunnel, hauled by 2807.

The other substantial carriage project this year has been SO 4798. Still having its early style flush glaze windows, and along with all the usual other problem areas, there's been an awful lot of metalwork needing doing on the panelling. It's more or less all there now though and over to the painting and prep team to tidy it all up.

Inside all of the window trim has been redone and the ceiling repainted.

The upholstery team have re-covered all the seats in this very fetching GWR snapdragon pattern moquette.

Speaking of upholstery, they continue to do sterling work for other railways. This year another coach was reupholstered for the Dean Forest, a Mk2. One pile of seats ready to go!

Sales of bags, cushions etc continue to be brisk, another big pile ready to go.

Our summer repaint was TSO 5023, another crimson and cream conversion to progress set 2. A nice straightforward job, before it re-entered service with us it was quickly whisked away for a short filming job elsewhere.

In-between everything else BSK 35308 has been receiving substantial metalwork attention on the ends and door surrounds - having been in near continuous service on the GWSR since it arrived in the 1990s it's overdue a thorough refurbishment. This is also intended to be the first coach in a planned short blue and grey set to better match with our diesel fleet.

Something a bit different, BR/MOD vanwide 4207 was selected to be turned into a weedkilling wagon, saving the railway money on using contractors to spray the line. The van body has been modified to suit and fitting of spraying equipment is in progress.

A slightly more involved job has been RMB 1876, initially posited as a repaint at the beginning of the year further investigation suggested it needed a bit more, so on we went with end metalwork repairs. This also necessitated the rebuild of the toilet vestibule woodwork, currently ongoing.

Its paintjob is nearly complete though, looking very smart in the paintshop at the end of the year in crimson and cream.

And to finish off, a couple more wagons we started towards the end of 2025. We initially hoped we could get away with mainly a strip back and repaint on GWR Mink D 28833 other than the doors, but hopes soon faded...

But the stripped back framing has already started gaining brand new planks and it's well on the way.

Finally at Toddington we repainted BR vanfit 755964 from its previous fictional army green into BR bauxite.

It's been another busy year on the blog too, 187 posts, with 238,000 views from all over the world, one of which was our millionth view since we set this incarnation of the blog up 5 years ago.

As for 2026, it should see RMB 1876 enter service at the beginning of the season, followed by SO 4798 at some point later in the year. We shall hopefully do one more quick repaint into crimson and cream to get set 2 all into one livery - likely SK 25451. On the wagon front, once the Mink D is finished we will tackle one of the fuel oil tank wagons. Beyond that, I'm not being a hostage to fortune!

So all that remains is to thank everyone for your interest over the last year, it really does make it all worthwhile, especially when we get recognised on the platform. We wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.