Meet The Teams - 3rd Rake Maintenance

As the title states, this covers the small team that looks after the cleaning and interior maintenance of our 3rd Rake, which is based at Winchcombe. While our main Friday Maintenance Team looks after the mechanical aspects of the 3rd Rake as they do for our two main rakes. All this is particularly important both prior to the special events, and of course afterwards! Christmas decorations in particular will leave little bits strewn about to be vacuumed up.

As usually happens there is the inevitable cross-over from other teams and 3rd Rake Maintenance is no exception, with members from the Indoor Gang and Painting Team becoming involved when repairs and tidying up of the paintwork and varnishing are required.

During the winter shutdown period, when we often have the two main rakes brought down from Toddington and stabled in Winchcombe Station, the team will extend their activities to these as well, while our regular Monday Cleaning Team are taking a break until the new running season starts.

Just prior to newly refurbished coaches going out, they will also give these a thorough vacuuming and a clean up inside, again with assistance from others.

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The core staff for the team are just two: -.

 Paul

 

Dennis 

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The three regular members from the Indoor Gang who assist with internal repairs: -

Tony

Alan

 Pat

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When it comes to painting and varnishing repairs, it is often our professional painter Bob K. 

Then other members of the Painting and Prep Team as required.

 Ainsley doing a paintwork repair on FO 13337 "Gillian"

Maurice, Stu, Phil and Cheryl preparing the lower panel of one of the 3rd Rake corridor coaches for a repaint prior to the creation of one of the two Covid rakes.

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The regular team at work 

Cleaning items gathered in the trolley and all ready to go.

Off to the yard.

They are in there somewhere, probably doing an initial inspection prior to beginning the cleaning.

Dennis looking for any problem areas. A faulty light?

Looks like the floor is going to be cleaned.

 All the seating has a thorough vacuum.

Not forgetting under the tables.

 Batteries only - makes it a lot easier!

Corridors as well as compartments.

The tools of the trade.

 Cleaning the outside

Off-train activities occasionally include washing seats ...........

............. and light shades.

The 3rd Rake is used for special events requiring all our running sets. Dennis proceeds with the watering up of the toilet tanks.

The hose connected to one of the filler pipes.

Alan doing some repair work under one of the tiny compartment tables in FK 13337 "Gillian".

Tony repairing the base of a window frame - probably checking the drainage pipes.

Pat sorting out a loose table.

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The winter shutdown period when the main rakes are stabled at Winchcombe.

 

Inside FO 3132 "Mary" in our Main (Chocolate & Cream) Rake 

A nice place to enjoy lunch!

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Our 3rd Rake Maintenance team do a great job in looking after our Winchcombe based coaches, and those of the two main rakes during the winter shutdown when they are also stabled at Winchcombe.

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Meet The Teams - a general note on these postings

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When these are initially published, Alex takes a copy and adds it to the Meet The Teams section under Pages on the left side of the Blog's home page. 

Clicking on Meet The Teams will produce the following listing. 

Subsequent clicking on the relevant team name will display that posting. There are still some more postings to compile before we complete the list.

The Meet The Teams postings here are kept up to date as the make up of the teams change and the work slowly evolves, whereas the original version in the regular posts is left as published as that in effect is historical.

Tuesday 22nd - Go for it again !

We had plans for today but so much depended on Joe Weather - too hot, too windy, wet, too still and muggy with clouds of small flies - so many things could spoil everything. However we were lucky, and we achieved so much more than expected.

Last summer with Lockdown 1 over and attending in small invited groups, at Peter Bennett's suggestion we managed to give the lower brown panels of our 3rd Rake coaches either a repaint or a thorough polish, the former obviously being preferable. This of course would apply only to the corridor coaches that would go towards the make up of the temporary Covid formations, but with the 3rd Rake this was most of them. The results are still looking good as our trains go by today. 

Now whenever looking down the yard, we can see our redundant Main Rake coaches stabled in the 3rd Rake siding and undergoing the "Winchcombe Effect". The orientation of the rakes based at Winchcombe enables the sun to do a great job of fading the Cotswold side paintwork from dawn to dusk. 

On Saturday Alex and I had walked alongside the coaches and knew we had to repeat what we did nearly a year ago. Plans were being made to return the coaches to their original formations. We knew the original proposed date of 5 July for the big shunt had been pushed back because of the Government's decision to delay the release from restrictions for another month, but time would soon go and things could easily change again.  

So, as reported in Saturday's posting we had made a start on BSO 9000, the Main Rake's brake coach. The aim we thought then was to continue on Tuesday and attempt to get some more done depending on the weather.

Tuesday began with Maurice, Stu, Alex and myself trundling down the yard with paint, brushes, thinners, rags, and all the other bits likely to be required, and a prayer that it wouldn't become too hot.

The first job was to get 9000 finished, so after taping up the line, Stu and Maurice set to and with those big brushes were soon covering the ground.

The existing transfers are always a challenge to preserve them with masking tape and a Stanley blade, but the effort is worthwhile. Alex took this on with SO 4790.

Although SO 4790 was the next in line, it presented a very different picture with cracking paintwork much more evident, especially along the infamous rivet line and inevitable popped rivet holes. So with old chisel in hand I got going with the digging out and Kurust, with Richard following on with the filler once the Kurust had dried. The roundel will be replaced with a new one - very unusually this one has flaked badly.

By now 9000 had been completed, and what a difference! We later unpicked the masking tape to reveal the number.

The south half of 4790 is now filled. I later joined Richard with the filling. The sanding would wait until later in the day because the wind would blow any dust on to the newly painted 9000. By afternoon the paint should be dry.

Alex had now proceeded to RBr 1672 and started masking up the BUFFET RESTAURANT CAR transfer.

While all this was going on, John had arrived and was making plans with respect to the future shunt to get the rakes reorganised. At the moment the part ballast train is parked in our headshunt, in effect blocking the exit from the back sidings of several coaches that will be needed. 

The north part of the RBr has already been glossed, Stu and Maurice having moved on rapidly. The slow-up was once again the coach number which needed masking. Stu stretches to full height while masking the line. In places the ground drops significantly making full stretching a necessity - platforms are the obvious solution but not easy to use with such uneven ground.

A look at the group, with Richard still filling the numerous places on TSO 4790, while Stu and Maurice have returned to the south end of the RBr to resume painting there. Alex is coming on well with masking the main transfer, while Roger is busy masking the roundel.

Some light relief with the first train of the day with Foremarke Hall heading for the station stop and then on to Cheltenham. Lots of passengers again, many waving as they pass by.

A walk back to the Paintshop for more supplies, and while at it a catch up on our other activities. Phil was busy cleaning up more compartment beading from SK 24006. I didn't get to see Dave H. inside the coach but he was carefully sanding down more of the lovely veneer.

Derek was cleaning up one of the toilet door frame pillars from CK 16221. The lighter coloured wood is a repair that he had carefully made and bonded on - a very good job. Apologies to Alan, whom I didn't get around to photographing, who was doing some secondary filling on the Cotswold side of the coach. Both sides are now being treated as such.

A well earned lunch break with (L to R) Roger, Alan, Dave H., Richard, Alex, Phil, Maurice, Derek, Stu, and Kevin.

With the day warming up, no time to spend too long at lunch, so back to it. With the letters masked up, painting the RBr continues apace.

The crew of Foremarke Hall appreciate our efforts as they pass by on the return to Toddington and on to Broadway.

I wish we had had the chance to polish that crimson paint - a test panel while the coach was with us had come up very well.

So, how were we doing? BSO 9000 looks so much better, especially when compared with TSO 5042 on the left.

So does the RBr, now almost finished.

Much later on with FO 3132 "Mary" completed and Alex having fun removing the line tape. In the background Stu was "enjoying" the sticky job of removing the tape from the number.

"Mary" now also looking so much better.

With the smaller transfers such as GUARD, KITCHEN, etc, Alex will be returning to use his magical touch and paint between the letters - they are simply too small to mask up individually. However when it came to MARY everyone really liked the way the name had been framed with the faded paint providing an interesting contrast - so it will be left as such.

To the right of "Mary", the final coach in the rake is TSO 4763 which had two places that really needed to be dug out, rust cured and then filled. However we decided to do the full panel repaint while we had the opportunity and then at a later date make the repairs. The patch paint after the repairs would also blend in much better.

Returning to SO 4790 we could now begin the sanding of all the filler that had been put on during the morning as the paint on the coaches on either side was now dry, in particular 9000 as the wind was blowing in that direction. Foremarke passes on its second return trip.

Roger managed to unpeel the flaking roundel. This will be replaced with a new one when the repainting is complete.

Dinmore Manor was in charge of the second train, returning to Toddington on the final one of the day.  Our sanding down on 4790 was complete and I was busy wiping down with thinners. Alex then undercoated the filled areas. It was time to finish.

So, what's left to do. Initially top coat the lower panels on SO 4790.Then if we have the chance there are the two remaining TSOs. One will remain as it is part of the original 3rd Rake, while TSO 5042 is having its seating re-upholstered so will not be returning to the Main Rake when the big shunt takes place. If both are to end up in this siding, a repaint is definitely worthwhile for both our sakes and our passengers passing by.

Overall it had been a very successful day with far more achieved that we had originally thought. We know that all this is only a temporary reprieve for the coaches and won't last as long as a proper refurb, but it helps to stop them getting any worse, and we have something decent to look at again and for our travelling public to enjoy. We look forward to the day when the planned carriage shed can become reality and the "Winchcombe Effect" largely eradicated.

If Peter had been looking down at us during the day, I think he would have been smiling.