Monday 25th - Home and Away

 It's that time of year again, "Home" is the Toddington team on rake 1 and "Away" is the Winchcombe team on rake 2. It does make for a somewhat disjointed operation, so all I can offer as a picture is rake 1 at Toddington, in the sunshine.

This was in complete contrast to the weekend, which was very wet. The river Avon flood plains I passed on the way down were certainly doing as intended. As I went over Simon De Montfort bridge both sides were flooded.

The first clean after the proper Santa trains. Maybe there are chocolate buttons in the packs somewhere.....?

The outside team of Paul, Peter, Tim and David washed this Cotswold side. Inside were the rest of us - Jane, John S, Nick, Roger C, Steve, Val and self. The "Away" team was Greg, Lynn, Nigel and Rich. No carriage washing there (sorry, Paul W, have to leave that to your gang!). 

Tim then did an extra duty and fetched the new supplies of carriage cleaner from Winchcombe and delivered them back to Toddington.

Saturday 23rd - Shunting in the storm

 Forecast was for high winds and heavy rain, a perfect day for a shunt... In the end it wasn't that bad.

The main exercise of the shunt was to do a bogie swap between FK 13329(?) which had good bogies but not in regular use due to overall condition and SK 25488, in regular use and good condition apart from wheel flats.

It was a successful mission on that front, the coach was sat on its bogies by the end of the day.

Before we could do that though, we had to wait for 3850 to disappear, which had been shunted out of the paintshop on Friday having had its final coat of paint. Foremarke Hall passes by with the ECS for the first Santa train of the year, a somewhat damp affair but I'm assured all had a good time nonetheless.

Start of Santa trains means the griddle in operation at Winchcombe, which is always a temptation too far for many in C&W, Paul captured a few of the usual suspects after a successful mission between santa trains!

In other shunting news yesterday, a sortie went down to Cheltenham Racecourse to pick up some more wagons. There's 3 tank wagons here - the middle one just came along for the ride as the team ran out of time to shunt it out. The two outer ones are next in line for the goods train once we've finished the Mica. A flatrol wagon was collected for onward transport off the railway, and also a vanwide for a planned conversion to a weedkilling wagon. More info on that as we get it! 

To other work then, starting on FK 13326 now in the paintshop. It seems to have dragged on this one, I suspect it will celebrate its 2 year anniversary of entering the works before it leaves again, but hopefully not too much longer. Plenty going on here, Dave attacking the end corridor door, Alan welding up the last bit of guttering, and Bob cleaning up the toilet tank filler pipes. I also went round with the grinder tidying up the bottom edges of the new sheet steel end panels, as they'd previously only been cut to size very roughly. A straight edge and some masking tape as a guide soon had them looking much neater.

At the South end Ben was busy fitting draft excluder strips. Once the doors are done we can do the final topcoat all over.

Work was going well on SO 4798 too, we're really motoring on now. Externally the whole north half is ready for general prep, filling and sanding etc. Alan did another window frame on the South end...

While Clive pulled apart the floor at the South end vestibule...

Allowing Alan to later move in and chop some more metal out.

Some new metal did go in by the end of the day too, half the new baseplate now welded in.

Meanwhile at the North end Simon cracks on with the woodwork.

It was quiet in upholstery today, just Laura steadily working away on more DFR seats.

When I asked what Chris was doing, he told me he was relaying a siding! In a roundabout way he is, the bench is for our P'way manager, in exchange for which we get another siding improvement project. Fair enough!

Alan was testing his 3D printed storage rack for the power tool batteries, excellent idea and well executed.

On the Mica, Paul and Maurice took the rest of the North end apart. Hopefully this is the last timber to come off now!

A week off from bending, John was making the fixing brackets for the tops of the handrails on the milling machine.

Thursday 21st - Back in black

It's quite something at 7.30 in the morning to enter the Paintshop by the south end door and see a great big black engine instead of a coach.  Maurice and I stopped and admired 3850, looking exceptionally big within the confines of the building (photo taken later in the day).

The shunt took place the day before and, the paintwork having been lightly rubbed down at Toddington, the engine was here for just a few days while another coat of paint was added.

Scott, who also painted 2807 when it came down to Winchcombe, was making another superb effort with 3850. Just look at that shine!

Back to our efforts with Maurice getting ready to continue preparing the north end of the MICA van for its new planking.

Pliers and an anglegrinder were needed to remove a stubborn bolt.

In RBr 1675's pantry Richard II is working on the inverter and its connections.

While underneath Richard I drills through to provide the water supply.

In the corridor and south vestibule Phil tidies up the top of the skirting board.

 

In the kitchen Paul removes the window handrail ......

........ and then sands it down ready for repainting.

There was quite an industry in progress with the improvements to the pelmets in 1675's saloon. Roger was producing new brackets which are used for securing the pelmets.

Geoff and Alan were attaching these to the backs of each pelmet board.

Roger marks the position of the retaining brackets.

Alan and Geoff now reinstate this pelmet.

Continuing the replacement of the under-window panelling on SO 4798, Alan cuts out the next of the two corner sections.

The removed sections.

The new sheet metal has been welded in and the whole area coated in green primer.

Rex is making a minor repair to this section of internal window frame.

Next a general sanding.

Gerry is removing old mastic from this window.

With the old wood frame removed the underlying securing screws for the metal window frame are revealed.

Looking a real old jumble it's not easy to imagine the lovely end result with all the seating and tables back in place and the new Snapdragon moquette looking really good, but it will happen.

Having completed another under window repair, Alan moves to the south end of the coach to continue cutting out the corroded areas, including the bottom 12 inches of the corridor connection support pillars and the heavy connection base plate.

In the south vestibule Phil shows the old piece of pipe that his new bit will be replacing.

This bit of ceiling also needs to be removed. The retaining screws are proving to be a challenge.

It was still pretty bleak outside with lingering snow.

The Open C wagon had been brought back round to the Barn entrance during yesterday's shunt.

For Tony it was back to vac cylinder cleaning up and repainting in black MIO. 

Hmmm, notice that the level in the tin has gone down quite a lot - time to order a fresh one.

With the north end repairs on the Monster van basically completed, Derek replaced the grab handles. More south end repairs are needed but the internal storage at that end will need considerable rearrangement first.

This cute little seat has been brought in for new planking and a repaint of the metal ends. The latter were cleaned up in our miniature grit blasting machine and then given a coat of green primer by Jeff.

Outside the day improved considerably - bar the bare trees, it could be summer.