Meet The Teams - The Carriage Cleaning Team

 

CARRIAGE CLEANING TEAM

The Carriage Cleaning Team meet on Mondays at Toddington, around 10 a.m. They take pride in presenting clean coaches and are very pleased to hear the occasional compliments. But often a clean coach is not noticed – but a dirty one certainly is! The state of the week’s coaches is discussed at the all-important tea break….

Our Team Leader is John. He has been on the team for a very long time! He is also a signalman and in Railway Catering Services (RCS). He gets the top Job!

The other current members are :

Kath (Mrs Blogger) and Phil

Roger O (steadying the broom) and David

Nigel P

 Paul

Lawrie (our man from Kent) who is also a Booking Clerk

Greg

Nigel H

Mark

 

Jane

Roger B (Monday Blogger)

Here using one of two “Ghostbuster” backpack vacuum cleaners that we have, paid for by Birmingham Area Group. Trailing cables for a mains vac down a 7-coach train was not practical. We also have battery sweepers. There have been many improvements to our tools and facilities over the last 10 years. Very fortunate as trains have got longer and volunteer numbers are not much greater.

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Our Carriage Cleaners do a great job. Thank you Roger B. for the excellent photos and descriptions.

Tuesday 21st - Queen Mary priorities

A lovely sunny day to work outside and what better than on the giant Queen Mary brake van. 

One appreciates its sheer size when trying to work out how we are going to set up the taped enclosure at the end of the Barn which we traditionally put in place for the visiting public (for viewing and photographing the trains) during our Galas. The Diesel Gala is this coming weekend.

On the Malvern side of the van Alex is removing the last of the wooden battens from the original planking. As previously mentioned, it's great to see the original S R on this side too. It will be a lovely sight to have this vehicle fully painted in Southern Railway freight livery, especially knowing that it still has its original planking in place.

On the Cotswold side Maurice is power cleaning up more of the metal ducket.

Roger is in the south veranda sweeping up the latest results of sanding and general paint chipping being done here.

With his work above completed, Alex is back to needle gunning the main frame.

Stu did a number of jobs before joining the team on the Queen Mary, including priming more wood sections for the Mink A van.

There is still a reluctance to return to our Mess Room, especially on a lovely morning. We are going to miss this when the days pull in again.

It wasn't all about goods vehicles today. Alan is cleaning up the table legs for the four compartments in BSK 34929. He later coated these in red oxide.

Keith was giving edges of the table tops a further coat of varnish. He then went on to varnishing more of the beading from TK 24006. His first job had been to give a coating of undercoat white to a display board for the gala.

Kevin was busy sorting out more of our spares. All his hard work over the years has made our lives at C&W a lot easier.

After lunch Stu undercoated the hand wheels on Dogfish ballast wagon 992930.

Back to the Queen Mary and with a lot more metalwork exposed, Maurice proceeded to paint on more of the green anti-corrosive primer.

Almost the end of the afternoon tea break, but being such a nice day, nobody was in a rush to return to work.

Alex contemplates his next job with the Queen Mary. He's been on that phone again!

There was a definite look of determination as he acknowledges someone's gesturing hands.

While Alex uses the mini-air lance (where's our long one disappeared to?!) to remove the dust and paint particles, Stu continues with the priming.

The final job of the day on the van was to put back all the nuts removed from the sides when the metal cladding was taken off.

I spent a lot of the day tidying up parts of the Works and preparing the Paintshop for our Saturday gala visitors. Alan takes over the job of vacuuming the floor, with Keith assisting with the broom. Stu and Maurice began their day sweeping the main path through the Barn. The main setting up will be done on Thursday, with the final on-the-day bits done on the Saturday and Sunday before we open up.

Monday 20th - One and a Half

 There were 10 for Carriage Cleaning today - but only rake 1 in the platforms, as you will see. So while 7 attended to that 3 of us went to the far end of the sidings to finish the DMU and give it a mop throughout.

We finished that just in time to get back to the station to have the all-important Tea Break, and now you can see why there was only 1 set there to clean.

There was a p'way train in action today. Collecting rails (new?) from Toddington, running up to Broadway and dropping them off at odd points on the way back. The telehandler was due to meet them at the drop off points. The guard for the day you may recognise.

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Seeing as it was mentioned, a few more pics :-) -Ed.

We collected a flat wagon loaded with second hand rail from Winchcombe and did 2 drops, one at Toddington:

Then it was off up to Broadway:

And re-marshalling the train in the station:

The objective was for the brake van and the loco to swap ends, which results in you arriving in one platform and departing the other, so departing platform 2 at Broadway, a rare treat! Michael, one of my fellow guards for the day, watches on. It was a popular job despite the inevitable hanging around, we always like something unusual.

We stopped just outside the station for the next drop, then ran back to Winchcombe, a very nice brake van ride!

Saturday 18th - Hazards of Blogging

 Another productive day today with plenty achieved. Starting on the Dogfish out in the barn, the dirty gang today comprising John, Andy and Ian were engaged in dismantling drawhooks for inspection, as part of our revised wagon FTR (Fitness to Run) process:

Behind the hook a large spring, heavy collar, and chunky washer all sit on the shank, held on by a big nut and split pin. It's all very awkward to get to, and sometimes they're not too keen on coming apart having not budged for probably 30 odd years. Even if they do, everything is heavy and cumbersome, a passing blogger with camera is at high risk of "Ah Alex, perfect timing, here, hold this!"

In the workshop George continued his efforts to clean up the south end of 16221, working on the filler pipe:

Paul and Dennis were taking a look inside, hello Paul!

Still lots to do in there.

Phil was refurbishing some components for toilet cisterns:

Ainsley was sorting out some leather door straps for 34929:

While John was on the grinder sharpening our scrapers, thanks John!

On the painting table Dave was doing one of those essential "Dave jobs" cutting up more rag, while Pam was top-coating the lamps I dug out the other day:

Nick also popped in to do a small welding job, now the French bolt has something to engage with, and a new chain:

For some reason my photos from upholstery didn't come out today, sorry guys! But rest assured they were working hard on the last few seats for TSO 5042, another coach now with a new lease of life.

I missed further door work on 34929 as well as I was focussed on the continuing work on the Queen Mary. Once again we had several people on this. But firstly a photo from Friday when a few of us came in for some overtime:

Maurice started sanding around the north end veranda, while Jo did a final clean-up and got the green primer out to protect the Cotswold side lower metal sides. Greg and Mark also stopped by in the afternoon and by the end of play we had both lower sides fully cleaned and primed, thanks chaps!

Meanwhile I was inside stripping out more plywood to reveal more original planking:

Back to Saturday then, and Bob tackled the other guards lookout stripping it of paint:

Paul cleaned up and then primed the north headstock, after painting the new metal bar sections on the Mink doors:

Richard, Chris and I were in the woodwork shop puzzling over exactly how we were going to make up some of the timber sections for the Veranda sides:

These are the bits in question, clearly in need of replacement:

Eventually we figured it out, making it in 2 parts was the way forward, and Chris set the angle up on the table saw and we boldly went for it:

We were pleased to find that if we cut the angle down the middle it was just the perfect size, so we were very economical with the timber used.

Today's secondment from the loco department came in the form of Bryony, who was dismayed to find herself on the other side of the blogger lens, normally writing the loco department blog. Just another hazard of blogging, sooner or later you'll get captured! I'm told there will be revenge...

Anyway, she set to with the disk cutter removing the last of the bolts that held the planking on the veranda sides before getting the pad sander out to make a start on the south end door.

The final job of the day was to have a bash at taking the metal plating off the Malvern side. This put up more of a fight than last week, but we got there in the end. Sure enough, another large S R was found underneath, very satisfying.