Hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and Boxing Day. We were closed on the latter day and Wednesday, but back to work today. We had a good turnout considering we are still in the holiday period with 8 attending – it should have been 10 but two of the team were unable to return as planned.
Beginning with Steven who began to construct the two support sections at the south end of the tank wagon.
Maurice began adding top coat to the Malvern side.
That’s the first one made and having a trial fit.
The end result, now on the painting testles, where the screws heads will be filled and the two supports primed and painted.
The two sides of the tank wagon standing out very sharply as the gloss white continues to be added.
The north end receives its coating.
One job with SK 25488 was to tidy up the base of the window slider frames and the edges of the sliders where needed. No matter how carefully the painting is done, sticking sliders can result and freeing them up can slightly damage the paintwork. A quick sand and touch up with each window soon sorted it out, the job being shared by David (above) and Martin (below).
Another job done was the repaint of the insides of the centre doors, the upper halves which are painted. Both were looking the worse for wear, so Martin taped up the first door. I then took over, taped up the opposite door and gave both a fresh coat of cream. It was quite an improvement.
David painted the two charging points and the fuse box cover in red, and then gave the steps a final coat of gloss black.
With all that done I think I can declare SK 25488 as finished. Alex has some highlighting to do on the two numbers and we just need to have a final vac throughout. There are more things that we could do inside had time been available, but the winter shutdown jobs are calling and so, with the shunt planned for next Wednesday, 25488 will return to the sidings, it’s first use probably being the Cotswold Festival of Steam.
Foremarke Hall sets off back to Toddington. Despite being back to a 10 mile railway, we still had some good numbers on the two trains.
Kevin makes the most of the holiday period, attending today and again on Saturday. He does a great job, here sorting out stuff that none of us stop and do.
A phone call from Ian – if anyone is looking for work there is more creocoting to be done, this time in 1675’s corridor – just look for the panels marked with an X. Dave happily took on the job and managed to get the panels in front of the counter done. The powered screwdriver soon removes the many screws .
Next, vacuum everything underneath ………………
……………….. and then on with the creocote, both on the wood supports and backs of the heavy plyboard panels. Once screwed back down each panel was given a tick.
2807 on its final run to Toddington with some nice reflections of the Christmas lights.
