Tuesday 25th - Variety and memories

 With the Gala Weekend rapidly approaching it was time to start the more major preparations.

Stu and Maurice took on the clearing up of the through road of the Barn. It actually wasn't too bad and is now looking quite presentable, though somewhat empty. There are two vans due to come in, but it is uncertain whether this will happen before the event.

Alan later took on the Workshop. Work on RBr 1675 during Wednesday/Thursday will no doubt deposit more dirt and dust, but at least we will have got the major job done and it shouldn't take long to whiz over the floor again. I similarly tackled the Paintshop and had a general clear up, including moving CK 16221 a couple of yards to create more space at the north end. Bob and Stu meanwhile put together the yellow stands for the chain barrier around the viewing area. The busiest preparation day will be Thursday.

 While all this was going on Dave cleaned up the bolts for the luggage racks for 16221.

With the previously cleaned and clingfilmed racks returned from storage, Dave and Alan began unwrapping them ready for putting back into the compartments on 16221.

Stu got cracking on 16221, beginning with the black sections of the remaining bit of lining out. This was on the Cotswold side south end door and corner. 

He then moved to the Malvern side, adding second top coat to all the window frames and then the bottom third working from the south end. As always with Stu, all beautifully painted.

Pam finished her day adding second top coat to the Malvern side north corner and door. It was her first go at coach topcoating and it came out very well. 

 

The quarter doors for RBr 1675 are proving to be a trial. The worst one will now be rebuilt after all. With the two new vertical parts of the frame now formed, Robert matches the main of the two old ones to mark up the relevant parts to be cut out.

 Meanwhile Ainsley works on the better of the two doors.

Inside the passenger area of 1675 Derek continues with the removal of the old wood floor supports from the crossbearers. The new crossbearer recently made by Rex can be seen in the foreground. In front of that are the pre-cut parts of new crash pillar that will be used to replace the corroded ones at the north end of the coach.

All the new internal signs have been made and are in various stages of painting. Maurice adds a second brown undercoat to the central panels for these two signs. After initial undercoating these were a little rough, but a light sand with 240 paper, the second undercoat, and finally brown top coat will provide an excellent surface for the lettering.

 Maurice adds the extra smooth filler to the corners of the final two signs.

It was good to see Pam back after a few weeks away and straight into a special job which she was very much looking forward to doing. Some initial planning and measuring .....................

................ to end up with the format and spacing required.

 With the pattern transferred the painting could begin.

An excellent job - well done Pam. The scotches can now be taken over to Permanent Way's road-rail vehicle, which has been named "Stevie" in memory to Steve Warren, for many years their digger driver who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Someone commented that all we usually see of Pam is that bell of hair. Well here she is relaxing during our end of day cuppa and cake(s) before the long drive home.

Stu gives the thumbs up, and with a cheery "See you next Tuesday", sets off for home in his MG.

It was another lovely sunny Autumn day as amply shown as P&O shuffles by on the first train of the day.

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Phil Hooton

I was very sorry to hear Richard and Roger's sad news about the death of Phil Hooton, who had been with the Cleaning Team for many years. I dug into my archive of blog photos and found a collection of when Phil attended the Works and helped on mainly wagon restoration in late 2015 and the first half of 2016.

BR Vanfit 755964 rebuild 

 8th December 2015

 

12th January 2016

 26th January 2016

16th February 2016

8th March 2016

DMU 51360 refurbishment

8th March 2016

GWR Ply Van 65643 rebuild

5th April 2016

17th May 2016

Monday 25th - Carriage Cleaning ADDENDUM

 Yesterday I mentioned that we have 3 members away with illness. Today I was stunned to learn that one of them, Phil Hooton, passed away on 9th October.

That's Phil on the left, typically sharing stories with fellow cleaners earlier this year.

Phil joined early 2013. In the winter shutdown Phil joined C&W and joined the Tuesday gang working mostly under Peter Bennet. He did a couple of years before he reverted to Mondays only at Toddington.

He was an ex CID Police officer with a wealth of lovely stories.  Always cheerful and full of good humour.

Phil was famous in the cleaning team for turning up with our "Christmas Bonus" one year. He presented us all with a window envelope with a £20 note inside. On opening it up it was in fact a printed paper napkin! That was Phil.

Monday 24th - Autumn Leaves

 Lots of leaves in the train, but this is the remains of a Biscuit Party.

Just 6 for cleaning today, but more of that in a moment. Just a couple of pictures of clean trains. Here the "Outside Stalwarts" Paul and Tim, in the distance. On their second train.

This is one they cleaned earlier

Inside were Greg, Rich, Kath and myself. The first photo was typical of the trains, so we had plenty to do. Fortunately the toilets were easy this week!

As regular readers will know we are quite a small team. And at the moment we have three regulars away with ill health challenges and two regulars are still busy volunteering, just not with Carriage Cleaning. One new starter moved to another department (no problem, pleased she was able to find something that suited her). So when you add in regulars who take holidays occasionally (they decline to come back just for the day!) the team can be quite small. 

Monday is also the day the Toddington gardening team come, so we get to know them quite well. But their Monday season probably finishes today, so it may be March before we see them again!

Saturday 22nd - A steady production line and more gala preparation

As the post title says, it certainly feels like that in the Paintshop as the trestles are cleared and steadily filled up again with items from both the Woodshop and Workshop, but it's all good stuff and shows both the ingenuity and speed at which things seem to be produced in C&W.

The painting up of the new internal signs for the Works continues with Maurice now taking on the job. 

 

The centre panel on this one turned out to be a little rough when undercoated, but a light sand with 240 paper sorted it and I later added another layer of brown undercoat. It should then be fine when top coated.

Whilst this was going on Simon appeared with yet another.

 Into the Woodshop to find him just finishing off the final one.

When it comes to a production line, our Upholstery team are masters at generating a seemingly endless flow of refurbished goodies. The first class seating for BCK 21092 really is just that - first class! Jenny assists Laura with the creation of a new cushion cover.

On returning later Laura was busy sewing the new cover and well on the way to completing this cushion.

 I missed John  working on this part reconstructed seat back.

 

In the Workshop Ken is making another new clamp for a toilet waste pipe for CK 16221. The previous one is painted up ready for fitting.

 

The resulting parts in the Paintshop ready for a coat of red oxide and then paint.
 

Some of the luggage racks for 16221 need reconstructing. Dave has attached a new section of netting to this one, but the only way to make it fit was to have it at a length that was a bit short. An extra piece will be attached from a roll that we have in stock.

With the flooring work in 16221 completed, Steve began his day laying sheets and blankets to protect the new marmoleum and carpet. Much of the postponed internal refitting could now be done, beginning with the corridor heater covers. The small electric heaters on the compartment walls (which are not used) will remain in brown, rather than painted in silver Hammerite as is normally done for radiators and heating pipework.

With the first top coat on the Malvern side of the coach completed, time to begin the second, beginning with the windows. George lightly sands this frame to provide a key.

We aren't out of the mire yet with the quarter doors for RBr 1675. Robert's response to my query about how it was going for this door wasn't optimistic. So one of the two possible replacements may still end up being used.

The final door for 1675, now fully cleaned up and given a base coat of light grey, is ready for storage in the Workshop rack until the Door team can begin reconstruction.

 

In the Barn the two Andys were continuing the maintenance of this bogie.

Meanwhile preparation for the weekend gala continues with Dennis watering up the 3rd Rake coaches and our lobby being cleared ready for our visitors. Tuesday and Thursday will see a bout of tidying up and vacuuming, and the various display items, sandwich boards, direction arrows, etc brought out of storage once again.

While for news of the goods train that will be running, over to Alex.

*******************************

Friday was the day of the big shunt to put everything together. Ben and Tom from the loco department did the lion's share of the shunting, most of it in the pouring rain so a massive well done for that. By the time I turned up after work to help there wasn't too much left to do. The main task was to go down to Winchcombe to pick up the Toad and the Mink A to add to the consist. Seeing as there was a fire and drive out today we decided it would be much more fun to use the duty steam loco rather than an 04, and here's Foremarke Hall part-way in the barn, photo taken by James, who kindly turned up to pull levers for us:

All hooked up, our short train posed in the station, next to the Fruit C it all looked rather good!

As I was busy traipsing around on the ground in the rain waiving my arms around for the final few moves I didn't get any more photos on Friday, but it was such grim weather it wasn't really worth it! Tempting as it was to do a brake test by lamp signals we decided to save that for another day, and I toddled off to a board meeting and then the pub.

Saturday was much better weather for faffing around with wagons outside, and we could see what we'd done now!

13 in total, we're pretty proud of that.

Clive and I had 4 wagons we needed to do annual axle box exams on before he could sign off the paperwork, so we set to, working our way through: 

It was a good vantage point to watch trains too, so some slightly different angles to the standard shots seen on this blog:

One other problem to resolve was the vacuum gauge on the Toad. It was only reading 8 when it should have been 25 yesterday. Happily the loco department have ways and means and a couple of hours later Steve had sorted it out and recalibrated it, complete with sticker and certificate:

Thanks Steve! He also very kindly started up the shunter so we could get that brake test done, which after a bit of persuading with one or two wagons was all completed successfully.

Another shot you can't often get, Foremarke approaches Toddington whilst the Cl.47 gets ready to come on the back to top and tail to Broadway, using the South crossover as we were in the way on siding 1:

And here hopefully a final video (if it works) captured by Mark on duty at the station at Toddington of Foremarke pushing our completed train into the North siding ready for next weekend:

Come visit next weekend to see and maybe ride on our goods train, the more popular it is the more we can justify doing wagons! :)