Tuesday 22nd - Rapidly changing

The final Tuesday before Christmas saw nine of us in. A few may be in on Wednesday and during the period between Christmas and New Year, but for the Painting Team that's basically it until Saturday 2nd January. We have made such good progress that we may as well enjoy the time at home.

Beginning today with Alex, adding another coat of varnish to the south vestibule in RMB 1808. This really is a very worthwhile job and is one of the many finishing touches that go towards the completion of the refurbishment.

 

 

In the counter area Russ added yet another coat of cream where needed.

 

The next job was to top coat the new section of ceiling in the vestibule. 

Another job completed. 

Well, actually, not quite. Alex, how do you fancy the painting the door number on the curved section, just above the entrance?

 

The final job was clear up the counter area, remove the dust covers from the seats, and pick up the floor covers.The whole area now looks very smart and ready for our passengers when 1808 returns to traffic and, we hope, better times.

With the final door now in place and working, Maurice spent the day sanding it down after its initial clean up and greying prior to its rebuild. Further filler has been added where needed and a fresh coat of light grey undercoat added. The adjacent panelling still has to have the capping strip put back, but Maurice cleaned up and filled where necessary this section too.

 

Moving into the Workshop to BSK 34929 where Richard has started cleaning up and sanding the second of the Cotswold side double doors.

Later in the day, with all the prep work completed, Richard added the light grey undercoat. Both doors are now ready for taping up and undercoating.

The rest of the capping strip has yet to be put back.

On the Malvern side Ainsley began the line taping using our positioning tool.

With the line tapes in position undercoating was soon underway.

On the north half of the Cotswold side the tapes had already been positioned and Alex had made a great start with the undercoat madder steadily transforming this side, adding to the south end which had been completed last week.

Transformation completed.

Never one to stand still, Alex moved to the opposite side to join Ainsley. Taping up was soon done and the undercoating on the north end well underway. By close of play the bottom panelling had been done as well!

Lunch time with just Ainsley and myself missing from the downstairs group. As a temporary Mess Room, the north end of the Paintshop has been ideal. The base of the gibbet hoist makes an ideal table!

It will seem strange when we can eventually return to the proper Mess Room.

In the Barn Derek was making excellent progress with the new floor in the north vestibule of CK 16221. The heavy ply board fitted like a glove.

Kevin did a very useful job in tidying up and cleaning the main Workshop tool bench. It's good to do this sort of thing fairly regularly and make everyone's working a lot easier.

 

Upstairs to Upholstery where the covers are going on. Dave is busy attaching new moquette to one of the seats to which he was recently sewing on hessian underlay.

The final three days of Santa Specials began today.

Foremarke Hall and Dinmore Manor were both looking splendid. Alex's "Santa Experience" headboards completed the festive scene.

We often watch the trains go by, with most of us piling out of the Works to enjoy the spectacle and wave at the passengers, especially now with lots of excited little faces waving back and eager to see Santa.

It's quite something watching each train begin the return to Toddington. With the engine having been stationery for quite some time, opening the cylinder drain cocks is essential to remove any residual water. When this is done, the locos literally disappear in clouds of steam as the train pulls away, the cold air making the sight even more spectacular. Foremarke Hall emerges from the cloud on its final trip of the day.

As far as we can in these strange times, have a great Christmas everyone and let's hope the New Year brings us all some cheer.

Monday 21st - The Magnificent Seven

The last Carriage Cleaning of the year.  Bucketing down when we left home, but Toddington was dry.  I get to hide behind the camera, so here are the others having a socially distance tea break 

l to r :- Kath B, John M, Ian H, Phil H, Paul T, Nigel P.

Season's Greetings, and here's to a much better 2021!

Saturday 20th - Counting Down the Days

9 turned out today, many for the last time this year. The first job was to shunt out the CK's bogie that had been worked on in the workshop out. It's not going under the coach just yet, so it's all wrapped up to protect it from the elements:

With that out the way and CK16221 back in its place in the barn, the rest of the day was spent putting the refurbished vac cylinder back on. It's an awkward job in a cramped area:

The trolley on the left is used to move the cylinder around and lift it up to offer it up to the mounting points on the coach.

It's exhausting work clearly, as Ian had to have a little lie down. :-)

4867 is still on the jack road, and Dave and Phil were battling with the last window frame, which predictably was putting up more of a fight than the others.

I think they got there in the end.

The rest of the team was focussed on RMB 1808 where we're also counting down the days 'til completion. A major milestone was achieved with the last door being finally rehung by Chris and Bob:

It wasn't on long before I'd started staining it (that's the darker patch) and by the end of the day it was all stained and varnished, along with the rest of the vestibule receiving a bonus coat of varnish to make everything gleam. The door itself is ready for the painting team now whilst there's just the capping strip to put back on before we can paint the door pillars.

Chris then moved into the woodwork shop to sort out the last couple of bits of wood for the centre door on the RMB:

Meanwhile Dave was still finding little bits to tidy up around the door edges:

Although he later got diverted to preparing some 3-link couplings for painting

I also found time to do a spot of sign-writing, this is for the new loco dept. building for their signing on point, where Eddie has made a superb desk for the purpose:

The quarterlights above were also given a top coat in maroon by Pam.

Well, that's it from me this year, at least in terms of "ordinary" blog posts (I may put up another archive post or two and some other bits and pieces if time permits). So I'll wish everyone as best a Christmas and New Year as it's possible to have this year under the ever changing restrictions, a massive thank you to my fellow bloggers Dave, Nick, Roger and Graham, and to all our readers for looking in and commenting, it's very much appreciated. Hopefully next year will be better.

Friday 18th - Maintenance

Report by Graham

Back at a damp and dreary Winchcombe yard for internal checks on the carriages that last week received underside checks. It kept us out of the rain showers thankfully.

Receiving attention were the rake these pics were taken from, plus the two maroon carriages indicated.

The end doors, side doors & windows, lighting, sliding quarter lights, and interior fittings were all checked.

Given that these carriages haven’t been used for almost 12 months they aren’t too bad inside. The spiders sometimes get a bit carried away with web making though!

We found a few odd little jobs we could do as we went but a few items went on the jobs list, eg freeing up a (completely) sticking end connector door, and cleaning and re-lubing nearly all the sliding quarter lights, most of which were objecting to the idea of sliding having got very comfortable in their closed positions. The quarter lights will be an all day job….there’s an entire train load to do! With the tables in the way trying to do these is better than several sessions in the gym though.

Friday 11th - Maintenance

 Report by Graham

The team was at Winchcombe this week for Type-A exterior exams on the carriages taken out of the covid rakes which would normally be in service, and which hopefully next year might see service again! We had been running 8 coach rakes, but the covid trains only have 6.

All the usual under side and body side checks. With the vehicles having been unused for a long period we were also on the look-out for anything that needs attention just because of that, eg. oiling of drying brake linkages.

A rotten step board was found…

New ones are nicely painted all over on the outside, but when fitted a dirty great hole gets drilled through them for the bolt. Hopefully paint or preservative is put down the bolt hole before they are fitted, but when we find them in this state it is difficult to tell.

 

We do find that the step board bolts can sometimes be tightened up to the point that a dimple is created in the top of the board. This can collect water when it rains and might also be a contributory factor. 

We have three types of braking arrangements on our BR1 and Commonwealth bogies.  The early BR1s have non compensated brakes, the later ones have compensated. The Commonwealth bogie brakes are compensated and a few of ours have automatic slack adjusters.  The older vehicles were from the start only vacuum braked but some of the newer (a relative term), were both vacuum and air braked, known as dual braked.  All of our vehicles are now only vacuum braked.

The difference between non compensated and compensated is that the latter have two levers included in the brake rigging on each bogie to balance the brake force between the axles.  This evens out brake block wear and the extra linkages make adjustment much easier.  The automatic slack adjuster does what it says on the tin.  From a routine maintenance point of view the thing that we need to keep an eye on, in addition to brake block wear is the gate gap or control distance.  With the vacuum destroyed, this should be 5/8ths of an inch.  This is the distance between the end of the adjuster furthest from the brake blocks and the adjustment bracket. 

Vehicles with slack adjusters can initially look like there is too much slack at the brake blocks compared to other vehicles that are manually adjusted and this is just another one of the things to take into account.

We also found a vehicle with oily axle boxes. At the back of the axle box is a cork seal…

…which can just be seen when viewed from underneath, and it is supposed to help keep the oil inside the axle box. Some seepage is ok, but it eventually needs attention. This one was noted on the exam sheet for monitoring and future attention.

Whilst we were in the yard we noticed one of the old unrestored carriages still had a box full of batteries…

…although it’s dynamo didn’t look it would help charge them…

So, another set of checks done, and a few more items on the jobs list to go back and do in a future visit.