Thursday used to be a very busy day with good numbers attending, but lately it has dropped down to the Tuesday levels, leaving Wednesday and Saturday as the main days. Saturday now regularly seems to be the best attended.
We do have several who will be away for a while, but today we had just eleven with the Mess Room at both 1100 and 1300 feeling somewhat empty when compared with Saturdays when every seat is taken. After the afternoon tea break just three remained.
Apologies for the very limited number of photos today, especially as I wasn't able to capture those on the coaches in the main rakes outside. I was also busy with a number of jobs, including a fair bit of tidying up in both RMB 1876 and the Paintshop. So many thanks to Russ and Roger for the extra photos.
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First a photo from Wednesday taken by Russ of the now very clean descaled urn in 1876.
In relation to this the calor gas servicing for 1876 by our regular engineer has been scheduled for next week.
Also on Wednesday the remaining lino in the seating bays in 1876 was removed. The coach is now ready for new marmoleum to be laid by Bob and Pete, our regular flooring contractors.
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Now on to Thursday.
[Photo : Roger] Beginning with the Indoor Gang's work to reinstate the repainted ceiling panels in SO 4798's south vestibule.
That extendable prop acquired mainly for ceilings has always been a very useful tool and certainly needed today. Roger makes some final adjustments before fixing this particular panel into place.
Steven attaches one of the beading strips.
The wider strips used for securing the centre areas being fixed by Roger and Alan.
[Photo : Roger]
[Photo : Roger]
Now on to 1876 where Martin is painting the chequerplate at the south end in Silver Hammerite. It took quite a bit of cleaning before painting could begin. Part of the connection paintwork was also topped up with gloss black.
I later painted more of the inside of the connection, and then decided that we would do the connection face after all. With 1876 destined to go straight into the centre of Rake 2, I originally wasn't going to bother. However it does look so much better when first going back out if the whole coach is done, rather than a gleaming coach with rusty connections.
For Bob it was another grand session of varnishing with the whole of 1876's north vestibule given a fresh coat, which obviously transformed it.
The new veneer access doors in the connection corridor were also given a second coat. He then began adding a second coat in the Cotswold side toilet compartment.
A member from RCS kindly came in today to empty 1876's store cupboard so that it could be repainted. A good clean, followed by a coat of varnish on the wooden shelves and a coat of Silver Grey on the walls should do very nicely. Another job to begin on Saturday.
Dave
ReplyDeleteMore good progress and a nomenclature note, the "connection face" is really the gangway face plate. I never see mentioned any attention to the bushes that support the face plate at the bottom, my late boss in the Carriage Section spent a lot of time getting the main works to overhaul them properly, when badly worn the face plate would sometimes stick in the compressed position.
Malcolm in Canada