Friday 16th - Maintenance

Martin, Ian, John, Graham… Another type C inspection. This time on the maroon rake. The external was done in the morning…

…the usual crawl ensued, taking the opportunity to apply some gloop on any dry looking bits…

 

…to keep things that should be able to move moving, eg the brake rigging, whilst also taking a good look at everything…

…although I did catch Martin lying down on the job…

…but this seems to happen to all of us during these external underside checks for some reason. We found an “elephant trunk” toilet outlet pipe can polish an axle nicely…

…when it is resting where it shouldn't, and another elephant trunk which had just gone missing…

…helping to more evenly distribute cack all over the brake rigging. Perhaps the p-way team have found it somewhere and can let us have it back?

We also found some loose bolts on one of the electrical gizmo boxes…

…so Ian got the spanners out and tightened them up…about…

…urrgh…tight! Loose nuts and bolts, split pins, etc. are easy to deal with as we find them. Things like providing additional securing for the toilet elephant trunks, which are often difficult to get at, can require more thought and preparation and get put on the To Do list, like attempting to do something about the roof leaks found in previous weeks…

…but there is only so much you can do trackside with a ladder. Some form of moveable gantry would enable better roof repairs. Dangling off the footbridge in a harness whilst the rake was shunted up and down underneath was mooted. The type C internal exam (list of jobs shown in previous Friday post) was also completed by John and Graham whilst Ian and Martin were splodging mastic around in areas of roof that were, a) easily reachable, b) might possibly benefit. No pictures of the internal checks…perhaps next time! When we were finished for the day we went and had a look at what was going on down the side of the engine shed…

…the p-way blog has details.

Thursday 15th - Quite a variety of things going on

Not sure what's happened to Nick and Wednesday's blog, but there'll be a log jam before long with all the activity we have! So here's Thursday, Wednesday may or may not follow... Ed. Edit - it's appeared! Carry on scrolling... 

I find one of the hardest things about doing the blog is thinking of a suitable title - sometimes one just pops up, while at other times, with the report completed, it's a struggle trying to come up with anything.

It was a very pleasant day weather wise, and an equally pleasant one inside the Works with quite a variety of things going on. Ah, there we are - the title resolved!

Beginning in the Paintshop, for much of the day it was almost deserted. So far the Painting Team's resurrected fourth day has remained very quiet and for most of the day it was just Richard and Ainsley, with Rod and I occasionally in for various things, and Russ, Alan and Tony in to look at the new Covid protection screen that the latter two had installed in the counter area of RMB 1808.

 

Making the most noise, and even that wasn't much, was Richard Bates (aka Richard I) who is fitting a new battery charger to 1808.

The new cable can be seen running from left to right under the sole bar.

 

  

Now on the Cotswold side of the coach, attaching more cable, this time to the side of the battery box.
.

 

 

 

The old unit that is being replaced.

 

 

Remaining with things electrical, Ainsley is repairing the back of the main battery box cover from the Malvern side of 1808. The original cross-spars have been replaced by two new ones made by our Woodwork Team the previous day. 

Both covers have been fully painted up and are now ready to be reinstated.

In the Workshop Trevor is busy attaching the door pull to the missing central door for the Malvern side of 1808.

 

Having trial fitted the door pull, he has now removed it to enable the matching up of the newly varnished back panel. The door pull will partly cover the raw edge at the top of the panel, so needs to be the final fitting.

 

At the end of the day, Rod Wells took this photo of the rebuilt back of the door.

 

 

 

The final photo of 1808 with Ainsley finishing his tidying up of the north end door threshold on the Malvern side.

 

 

Time for the 1100 break with our, we hope temporary, Mess Room "window" open to the warm day outside. There are donuts and fruit pies (the cherry ones were very nice) on that mini trestle.

With it's increased priority, as you can imagine, there is a lot going on with respect to CK 16221.

Phil is cleaning up the runner for what has to be the mid corridor slider (it's straight, not curved) that divides the First and Second class sections of the coach.

 

With the runner dismantled and cleaned, Phil is greasing and  relocating the ball bearings.

 

 

 

A zoomed photo of Geoff marking up some beading to fill a missing section of window frame edging in 16221's corridor. Both this and others that were cut were later varnished.

The Painting Team have been so busy with 1808 that we have only been giving the CK an occasional bit of attention recently. This of course has to change, though there is only so far that we can go with the exterior as there is still an amount of structural work remaining. The aim at present is to get the body sides as far as possible "greyed up" and at least some of the windows into Undercoat Cream. 

 

Rod and I continued the fine sanding and finishing of the filler and areas of red oxide. As expected more areas needing filler were found, in particular around the window frames.

 

 

 

 

 

John working on the bogie from 16221. The centre bolster has been extracted and awaits cleaning up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A closer view of the bolster.

 

 

 

 

In one of the compartments in 16221, a collection of heating units with refurbished control valves fitted.

They might be in the siding awaiting the day we can run them again, but we are taking great care of our precious coaches that have been put out of business by this wretched pandemic.

Paul was once again busy with the vacuum cleaner keeping the dust and dead flies at bay.

 

 

 

The sad sight of FO 3132 "Mary" with the seat cushions upturned to help prevent fading. 

Another photo taken by Rod Wells, this time of SO 4798 at the end of the redundant coaches rake. This is likely to be the next one in for a quick tidy up and repaint. The body sides are looking distinctly tired despite having had a quick repaint not that long ago. Some of the lino (now termed marmoleum) will probably be replaced in the vestibules as that is very old and now cracking up.

No trains on Thursdays, but the lovely warm Autumn day more than made up for it.

Wednesday 14th - New skills developing.

 Rex and Gerry wanted to work outside again

so today they got their wish, also embracing a request from John Hamer to remove suspension parts from a donor bogie. 

Tony and John are waiting for the donor parts

So it seems a new team is born

this bogie is destined for 16221.

Staying with 16221, I left behind the welding mask and 

removed the rather moth eaten battery boxes. Fortunately the surrounding

steel work is fine and just needs painting, the carpenters will be making new bespoke 

battery boxes.

34929 is still a way off completion, and there is no 

real panic however I think its always worth a look

at the fantastic attention to detail Colin is applying 

to the saloon doors and surrounding framework.

Jeff is near completion on the north end toilet compartment.

Ken is using our big band saw cutting sections for a

stock of brackets. These particular ones are for anchoring the panel work around the corridor connections.

Generally at the moment Tuesdays are painters days

but we can't always do the same day, so Dave is doing some 

of the detail which makes our carriages look so special.

I had to do this, anybody know where Russ is?

He had sneaked into 1808 for a crafty cuppa.

Des looks amused.

Jenny and John are preparing a new canvas base for sowing .....

on their newly serviced sowing machine ....

now thats different from carriages.

It happens every operational day, you hear a steam

whistle and just have to go and wave.

Its what we do.

Finally for today, we have to comply with safety in all its forms

and annual equipment checks are part of that process.

Bill from BOC came in on Tuesday and safety inspected all welding equipment,

some gauges had date expired and were replaced. He gives everything a thorough 

going over and then issues safety certificates.

Many thanks Bill.

Tuesday 13th - A Lot of Bang for Your Buck

Just seven of us in today, but despite that, we managed to get a substantial amount done. We were well spread out too, Bob and Alan were out in the barn, where you can really feel the temperature difference now, sorting out the Cotswold side of CK 16221:

There's quite a lot of partially sanded filler, which is smooth but not flat, and this really needs dealing with before we start painting. Likewise the "ploughed fields" where the red oxide has been painted on quite heavily will show through all the way to top coat unless it's all smoothed out now. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can get an overall coat of grey on this, which will be a nice visual step of progress, and no doubt show up loads more areas requiring attention!

In the workshop, Roger was cleaning up and painting the back of the corridor connection of the BSK:

I think we've done all all the painting stuff at this end now so assembly can now be completed.

We did well on the RMB today, with nearly all of the Malvern side in second top coat, bar the lower chocolate panels which Maurice gave the first coat today:

Behind Maurice Richard is doing the final touches of the second cream top coat.

I took on the Cotswold side, doing all the cream panels and lower brown panels which completed that side. We'll leave the paint to harden for a week or so before lining out, but that's the next step now, hurrah! Dave decided that just because I was doing the blog today, didn't mean I could escape being in it, nor him being deprived of taking photos, so here's one of me mid-flow:

Dave's project for the day was to tidy up the grotty threshold for the end corridor door. After stripping out the old whatever-it-was, he managed to find some offcuts of lino matching what was already in the coach.

On the left, cutting out the right shaped piece from the spare, and in place on the right. A dab of sealant and this now looks much neater than it did before.

Inside, Russ was brightening up the shelves behind the serving area with some fresh white paint:

We've also decided to repaint the surrounding area from Executive Light Grey (which needed touching up anyway) completely into Cream which will make this coach feel very fresh indeed.

Finally, a last pic from Dave, it seems after I left Richard saw an opportunity and pounced!

A much coveted job that!

Friday - A jolly on the Severn Valley

A few pics from a very enjoyable day out, last Friday a few chaps from the loco department and I went to have a ride behind 1450 before its boiler ticket expires in the next few weeks. it was double heading with a pannier, 7714 on an 8 coach GWR set.

Like everywhere at the moment, it's pre-booked seats only, so no picking and choosing. As we walked down the platform, it was fingers crossed, would we be in one of their superb toplights!? Ah, one out, we were in a Collett TK, never mind. Still a treat to travel in something pre-BR.

For illustration, Toplight on the left, Collett on the right (photo obviously not taken on Friday, but a couple of years ago!)

We had 3 round trips in total. 7714 took us down solo from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth, where we got off to watch it run round:

Before picking up 1450 for the rest of the day, here just about to come off shed

It was straight back up to Kidderminster, non-stop apart from a brief pause to cross a diesel charter, where we watched the pair run round.

After grabbing a cheese toastie from the Railway museum cafe (shorter queue than the main refreshment room, we know all the tricks!) there was just time to admire the signwriting on this rather smart LMS 6-wheel full brake:

All that panelling is just painted on for effect, quite common when the first flush-sided coaches were being built, so they'd blend in with the older style wooden panelled moulding stock. It didn't last to get done on Mk1s, but the earliest Stanier coaches which are very similar did receive this livery. That would be fun!.....

Another round trip or two later (you start to lose count, just enjoying watching the scenery go by and the chit-chat in the compartment) After a Fish and Chip Dinner and been snaffled from the local chippy, that was that:

I only had time for a quick snap before dashing to catch my train home, although I needn't have bothered with an hour delay at New Street later on.

So goodbye 1450, hopefully it will be back in steam again soon and it can have another visit to us on the GWSR too. Here's a couple of my favourite pictures of the loco, first at Bewdley March 2018 in the snow, again paired with 7714, and second at Arley the following September on an Autotrain, to finish off: