Tues 17th / Weds 18th - And so it continues
An excellent couple of days with both the winter maintenance and the long term projects proceeding well. Gerry very kindly supplied the photos for Wednesday.
Tuesday
Thankfully it was a clear bright day, albeit somewhat cold at -6C, but loading a pair of bogies in wet weather would not be fun. These are off to St Philips Marsh, Bristol to have the wheel tyres turned. John H. supervised the loading.
The Mogo is now in the Workshop and working on it a lot better than in the very cold Barn. Paul and Richard were gradually removing more of the old plyboard.
We could have done without all the clutter in the van. Paul tackles more of the old nuts and bolts.
Meanwhile in the balmy Paintshop Keith undercoats the last of the new dropdown sections for the Mogo. Near the end of the day the undercoat had dried and he was able to add the GW Grey topcoat.
Ian had a change of job today, assisting Derek by locating all the pilot holes in ends of the crossbearers on RBr 1675 and boring full sized holes ready for securing the wood floor supports.
Ken had requested that the locations of the vertical wood supports for the corridor connection at the south end of 1675 be primed.. The new supports were on the Paintshop trestles and had been undercoated, and then later topcoated, by Keith.
Having just photograhed the above, my eye caught the "millions" of tiny holes in the undercoated Toddington Station notice board. I know that many notices will have been pinned on the board over the years it has existed, but this many? And this is only part of the overall board. Perhaps we should have sprayed on some woodworm treatment first.
Where we don't want woodworm! Dave cleans up another compartment sliding door from TK 24006.
Meanwhile Keith has given a second coat of varnish to this side of the previously sanded door from 24006, and is now giving a coat of primer to the back of the new ceiling panel for FO 3132 "Mary". As reported in a previous blog the south vestibule ceiling in 3132 was in a bad way, but we are unsure whether this was caused by condensation from the toilet tank or a roof leak. Both the tank and roof seem to be ok.
In the background Keith is top coating the previously mentioned corridor connection supports for 1675. while Pam does some more work on the three station fire buckets. They won't be going back out until she is completely happy with them.
On to CK 16221 and we are really getting close now with the finishing off, with any jobs arising being dealt with quickly. Sticking problems had required some adjustments to the two inner doors on the Malvern side, basically some wood shaving and a bit of anglegrinding on parts of the door sides and frames. The first class one had had a partial paint repair, which Stu finished off before tackling the paint repairs to the second class door.
Unfortunately the south end door was also found to be stiff on opening, so Ainsley got cracking with the anglegrinder and soon had the door functioning much better. Stu again did the honours with the repairs. We always try to limit the amount of paint on door edges and frames to help prevent this sort of problem, and they are never varnished.
Stu replaces the four grab handles on the Malvern side and ticks off another job completed.
Meanwhile when I had the chance I was back on the tower to finish clearing the accumulated dust off the roof. The worst is vacuumed off and then the area wiped over with rags and white spirit.
Two more tower lengths along the Malvern side and then round to the north end were all that was needed complete the job. What a difference! All that was left to do was a small bit of touching up where a bit of painting had been missed on the roof end.
The spare luggage rack that had recently been repainted in silver Hammerite had been mounted in one of the first class compartments by our Upholstery team to replace a rack with a slightly bent frame. The result was quite striking in that it looked so much better. So taking great care to protect the new seating and carpeted floor with thick blankets, Stu went through all four first class compartments and repainted as much as possible of the remaining racks.
Richard did the same with the three second class compartments.
The results speak for themselves!
Another job ticked off the ever decreasing list was cleaning the grubby formica on the backs of the two toilet doors with Cif. Pam then added a bit more varnish around the back edges of the doors, and again, what a difference all that made.
In the Woodwork shop David is making frames for 16221's compartments, though I'm unsure whether this is for mirrors or paintings. There seem to be some confusion over this.
Ian kindly stayed on and assisted Ainsley and I with the removal of the Malvern side guards door from BSO 9000, which is now on the Barn through road. Having got the door onto one of the Door team's benches, he assists Ainsley with the removal of the base section.
Finally, the cover for Upholstery's sewing machine that was being made by Laura on Saturday, now completed and doing its job admirably.
Wednesday
[Photo :Gerry] Derek measures up for another floor support in 1675.
[Photo :Gerry] Chris meanwhile prepares another piece of temporary flooing.
[Photo :Gerry] Geoff and Colin (foldly named the "Chuckle brothers" by Nick) preparing floorboarding for 1675.
[Photo :Gerry] Bob repairing the U section from the Cotswold side emergency door on 1675.
[Photo :Gerry]
[Photo :Gerry] Bryan cutting new sections of metal panel to rebuild the sides of the door frames.
[Photo :Gerry] Rex welds on a new roof section on the Cotswold side north end of 1675
[Photo :Gerry] Robert takes over the work to repair the Malvern side guards door from BSO 9000.
[Photo :Gerry] In the Paintshop David primes the main side of the new ceiling panel for FO 3132.
