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Thursday 22nd - A very satisfying day

Another gloriously sunny day awaits our efforts.


 The first job was to open the Barn roller shutters to let the warmth in again!


 Beginning today with TSO 4772 on the jack road and John checking the ride height.


When working on the bogies (this was the south end), lying down can make the job easier. Both Ian and John are refixing the Malvern side tie bar.

Much later, with the 03 coupled up to the coach, Ian waits for John's signal before taking it up the yard for another shake-down run.


Moving into the Paintshop and BSK 34929. The Cotswold side guards door was giving the new Door Team a headache and when refitted was rubbing badly at the base. Following a substantial rebuild, was there something wrong with the door itself? The hinges were in the correct position both on the door, and on the bodyside after the replacement of the wood doorway liner. However the heavy wood threshold was slightly raised above the rest of the floor - was it simply this? Also bearing in mind that the final metal threshold strip still had to go on.

With the threshold piece removed, Des and Trevor decide the best way forward. In fact the easiest solution was to reduce the thickness at the two ends, in effect lowering it, rather than simply planing across the whole length.


So with the threshold wood put back, the door was again hoisted up by Ainsley while Trevor guided it into position.


Success! The door itself is fine and now moves exactly as it should with everything in the correct place. No wonder Trevor is smiling! Well done chaps, an excellent solution.

Just the handle and budget lock to refit and job done with the door. The Painting Team can now add the lining out tapes and get it undercoated. Meanwhile the left hand capping strip will need to be fitted with the doorframe liner, followed by the striker plate and budget lock receptacle.

The centre passenger doorway now beckons! A bit of work remains to be done there before a door can be fitted.


Alan was the only one from the regular Indoor Gang attending again. He was back adding more threshold strips in the doorways of 34929 where the floors had been rebuilt.


He was later joined by Bob S. with the cleaning up of the bolts for fixing the luggage racks in 34929.

The Upholstery Team are still re-stringing racks for this coach, but those that have been done can now be bolted in place.


Later on Bob was reinstating some more of the top panelling pieces in the corridor on 34929.

Moving out to the yard where Richards I and II were checking the batteries in the collection of non-running open coaches and recording their readings. This is RMB 1808.

Back into the Workshop and CK 16221. With the extra bit of repair by Nick to the corridor metal framing now done, Derek was able to resume his fitting of the corridor floor.

"Foremarke Hall" was again in charge of today's train with lots of happy smiling passengers to wave to.

After lunch Trevor took Jasper, his lovely little cocker spaniel, for a walk around the yard. Jasper thoroughly enjoyed it all, and was certainly very pleased to see us all.

Finally, the continuing progress with BG 81049. Prior to working with Alan on 34929, Bob S. carried on with the black glossing of the north end of the BG before I took over.

Meanwhile Bob K. restarted the final sections of lining out on the Cotswold side. However as I tend to get called away on various things, and occasionally need to capture events as they are happening for the blog, Bob and I swapped over and he took over the painting of the north end.

Jeff made great progress at the south end, practically completing all the main painting. Here he is repainting the corridor door in tan paint.

Wednesday 21st - All Hands

 A sort of normal Wednesday, if there is such thing ..... the plan being to carry on where we left off last Thursday.


Rex carried on with removing a door skin, the hinge bolts refused to budge so the magnetic drill stand came in. Slowly but surely he drilled each bolt out ..... success!


Meanwhile, Gerry is moving on with another door skin ..... the Bottom 200 mm has tin worm. He removed the rotten bit and made a new piece which was welded in.


Bryan is continuing with making ladder wall mounted brackets, these are situated at various points around the workshops each is numbered and hopefully get returned to their correct places after use.


David is seen here continuing the panel work in the North vestibule of 34929, it's slowly moving towards completion.



Dave made a lovely job of painting this battery box, he then asked is there any thing else to do?
I think we can find you something, so I introduced him to the sliding windows on 16221. The top frame needs to come out to replace a missing part.



This is not a job for the feint hearted, but Dave waded in and managed to remove 1 screw. Its looking very likely the window frame will have to come out ..... Dave thanked me for having such a lovely day.🙈!


Jenny and John are removing a luggage rack from 34929, this will have their magic worked on it.


And this is the magic!


Tony just loves preparing the compartment doors, and has his own way of making perfection. It might not look much now, but when the varnish goes on it makes all the hard work worthwhile.


It doesn't matter what you are doing, if you hear the steam whistle ..... drop everything and go and wave.

With around 12 of us in we tend to be spread out a bit, which makes it tricky to photo everyone. If I missed you I do apologise.

And from Richard on the Mink A:

Not Floored by the flawed floor....
Today's work on the wagon was to remove the doors, remove the roof metal end cap hoops, and the floor.  The doors came off relatively easily, and gravity helped with the 'heavy-ish' end hoops....but the floor put up quite a battle!

 

Doors dismantled and metal hinges, locking bars etc. laid out along with end roof hoop caps


The floor mid-battle!


All gone!

Tuesday 20th - Not far to go now

Another gloriously sunny day and another great surge foward with the Painting and Prep Team's current project, BG 81049. So much painting was done today that I have had to leave a note for any of the team coming in the next day to request that no more is done until Thursday to let the paint harden. Even this isn't really enough (gloss actually takes a long time to go really hard), but we have to get on and get this completed.

The day started bright and early with Maurice and Stu completing the cream top coat on the Malvern side of the coach, much of which had been done on Saturday. By the time I got around to taking photos, they had finished. Richard had arrived and started the lining out on the Cotswold side, while Maurice touched up a missing bit of cream on the guards door.

Back on the Malvern side our intrepid pair then got going with the crimson top coat and were soon rattling along.

Time for the morning break and a chance to have a look at the marmoleum catalogue to decide on the design to have for the remainder of BSK 34929 (the new seating/disabled compartment has already been done). Phil, Dave and Bob discuss a number of possibilities. It depends on the base colour of the moquette used for the seating when that it is reinstated. We think it is Trojan as there are a number of compartment seat cushions in the Upholsetry shop all ready for fitting (a call to John, our Head of Upholstery, later confirmed this).


Stu, Maurice and Richard taking a well-earned break. For them it has already been a long morning. 


Our morning break time works out nicely for the first return from Cheltenham. Today "Foremarke Hall" is in charge.



At the south end of the BG, Roger had made a good start, initially using the scaffold to do the top section, and connection rain cover and rubber bellows, in gloss black and matt black respectively. In the distance Richard is proceeding quickly with the upper lining out, completing the line with black gloss.

Wow, Maurice and Stu move fast! The Malvern side lower panels are almost completed. Once the main top coating is finished for this side, this just leaves the lining out and then the black glossing of the handles, door stops, droplight top bars, sole bar and steps.

Back to Richard, now taping up more of the top line ready for the black. Alex isn't now the only one with that tell-tale festoon of used tape. Further along this side for a while I also got stuck into doing the lower line and then started blacking the handles, stops, etc.

 

Stu then moved on to glossing the sole bar and steps on the Cotswold side. Richard was completing his lining out and then he also started blacking up the door and other furniture.


With Roger already busy at the south end, Maurice repainted the north end corridor connection door in tan.


By now a large part of the south end had been top coated. The transformation once the black gloss is applied is always amazing. That air extraction unit is scruffy and might benefit from a bit of silver Hammerite. Be nice to "hide" that white box on the right hand side as well.


The north end of the Cotswold side.


A final shot of the south end before locking up for the day. Not to much more to do now. 

Meanwhile some of the inside could do with some paintwork repairs. If we get the chance we will see what we can do, but other things are lining up, so we can't make any promises.

Several other things were in hand today.


Bob was back on the compartment doors for 34929, lightly sanding, rubbing with wood dye if needed, and then revarnishing.


The toilet compartment door was also done.

Dave H. and Robert, once again assisted by Phil, were back in their coach, SK 24006, beginning the long job of removing the heavy compartment seat backs. I helped them move the two that had been released from the first compartment. Being involved in this tricky manual job I forgot to take a photo.


So, what was our choice of marmoleum for 34929? 

"Graphite" - the third one down in the first column, with "Slate Grey", the fourth one down in the third column as the reserve option.