Another fine and dry day. The cold wind has gone and lunchtime once again had some of our team enjoying the warm sunshine.
Following up a recent enquiry about Pam’s long absence (she last attended during February), she has had a bad spell of ill health with a slow recovery. I keep in touch with her and usually phone her every week. Thankfully she now sounds very much back to normal and her old happy, cheerful self, and hopefully she will be returning sometime in May. As she often says, the Railway is her happy place, so it’s a shame she has missed so much.
Please come back soon Pam, we need you.
Now on to today’s activities.
A busy station scene with Ian and Keith waving to our passing passengers. Our trains had a lot more on them today which is a good sign.
Some of our regular Tuesday team were away today, including Richard who had his RCS hat on and was on the RMB standing in for someone who was unable to attend. Wish we could repaint 1876 which is now looking extremely shabby.
Door 10, the Cotswold side emergency door, on RBr 1675 has been continually problematic and so another strip down of the door frame is required. Robert and Chris work on the metal frame.
Later on Ainsley was busy working on the lock.
With that unwieldy grossly over-engineered trestle (sorry – I hate the thing!) pushed out of the way, Alan worked on the south half of the Malvern side sole bar, initially wire brushing and then applying a coat of red oxide. While being limited with further bodyside painting at the moment, it’s good to get these other bits done.
Keith initially painted the cast step and gas bottle box cover, and then moved on to priming the various wood pieces produced by Chris for the Toddington shunter doors.
The electrical connection patresses are next, and once more those excellent plastic pyramids come into their own, enabling both sides of each patress to be undercoated.
Now a “seasoned commuter” regularly coming from Cheltenham by the train, Paul sands the north end of the ply van before applying top coat.
Moving outside to photograph Derek enjoying the good weather while doing more repairs to the Monster Van.
The next section to be repaired.
Walking over to Rake 3 where Dave is working on his coach BCK 21092, making some cosmetic repairs to the bases of the guards door and adjacent entrance to the two first class compartments.
Alan was in today instead of his normal Thursday working. He managed to free up this sticking door droplight on the Malvern side of SK 25341.
A well worthwhile job for me was applying sealant around some of the Malvern side windows on FK 13326. Fresh undercoat cream can now be applied with the paint going up to the glass and as such looking very much neater.
Ian cleaned up a lot of the south end of 13226. This will given a fresh coat of green primer and then dark grey undercoat in preparation for the eventual reinstatement of the corridor connection.
Following a walk up the yard to deposit a load of cardboard in the recycling bins, I decided to walk back through the station. Winchcombe is always a very attractive station and the newly replanted beds are already beginning to look nice.
With time ticking away I have now started the list of monitors on our lobby white board for when the Works is open to visitors during the three days of the Gala. Just a month to go now.
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Walking through the station certainly beats walking through the yard!
