Mid Hants Railway Operational Matters

I believe so.

 

It is rostered for both weekend days.

 

Thank you both.

Hopefully I can make it tomorrow!

Thanks

Andrew

 

We've been quiet of late due to excessive heat and lack of bodies making working party's atop the hill a non starter!

Yesterday however, we made it to the yard, it was a bit of a slow day, but progress was made non the less on the workshop PMV.

Out of the eight folks assembled, and with the main chassis now being in gloss, the decision was made to lay the rest of the floor, so that we can now walk around the PMV without problem.....

Most of the lads not on floor cutting duty cracked on with cleaning up the exposed steel uprights, whilst Muggin's 'Ere, Me Mucker & Matey extracted said boards from the S&D van, no mean feat, and got them chopped to length, after that it was a case of where we left off a few weeks ago with the cladding ply.......

We knew we had to fettle the top board, but just not how...... cue head scratching, and investigating, just what was stopping it from going home - turns out there were two rivet heads preventing this, one hiding under and obscure bit of timber - once that was removed, and steel work cleaned up, collective brain cells were called into action to work out just how to go about it without making a mess of the board, but not easy when you can't hear yourself think due to the amount of banging & crashing going on elsewhere inside the van!

Anyhoo, once a method had been settled on, the board was fashioned to fit & then trial fitted, and by some dint of a miracle, our efforts paid off, as the board fits as snug as a bug!

Next time it'll be the nerve wracking experience of routing to boards...... seems Muggin's & Me Mucker have made a rod for our own backs after our efforts on the LMS van!!!!

Did take any pics at all yesterday, but it nice to see one of the 20's out along with Can Pac and lots of folks out enjoying themselves on a day out.

 

6989 Wightwick Hall added to the loco roster for October as the Hall returns to action after her boiler repairs. The loco is off for more filming duties in November.

 

You may remember, Dear Reader, that about a month ago(?) we took a door off the workshop PMV...... we managed to get one hinge pin out, with a lot of protest, but could not persuade any of the remaining three to do likewise, in fact we were in danger of badly distorting the uprights given the amount of resistance!

A couple of weeks ago, the three were cut out, and this week at work Me Oppo took the opportunity to finally get the pin out of the strap, he's only done one so far, and to give you an idea of just how seized the pin was, it defied a fly press along with a 10 ton press, as well as being drilled out to a 2mm thickness, it finally succumbed after a channel was milled out!

Back to yesterday atop the hill, it turned out that we had more bodies than there was work on the PMV, so one of the new guys was shown the ropes on wagon exams by three of the others, and by the end of the day they'd complete five exams with one or two anomalies thrown up to deal with.

Two more of the lads had the job of sorting out the internal angle on the London end south side - easy on paper, but a pain in practice, as we can't remove the end cladding planks due to the electrical intake coming into the van that way, so they had to carefully chop planks to gain access to the rusted bolts, which proved stubborn buggers to cut & beat out, but by the end of the day, they'd got them out, derusted, red oxided & got various bits of steel into first undercoat!

That left Muggin's 'Ere & Me Mucker to crack on with fettling the new ply cladding.....

First up was to mark them out to mimic the existing T&G..... measurements were checked & double checked, just to make sure before routing was even attempted - satisfied, the plunge was taken & the boards routered, they were then trial fitted to work out where the window reveal sits, which was actually straight forward, but the one thing we needed, but didn't have, due lack of a key to a van, was a pane of glass to work out exactly where the pane sits, so that the reveal can be cut & routered........

So, architrave was found & laid & marked out, to give us a good idea for when we can get our hands on a pane!

Muggin's then primed the faces of the two sheets, whilst Me Mucker sorted out the next sheets to be tackled.

So a good & productive day was had by all.

The passing trains were full of happy families enjoying a day with a certain blue engine.

The hinge strap with offending pin drilled out.



What's left of the hinge pin finally out.



The south side London end cleaned up & into first undercoat.




The ply sheets routered & trial fitted.




Where the window should sit.....



Faces into primer.

 

Does anyone know what will be running this week? Am planning a visit and am interested to know what the likely motive power is.

 

It'll be either Canadian Pacific or the Class 47 or one of the Class 20's. I would assume Can Pac will be back next week but I don't know for definite.

 

35005 Alresford and 41312 Alton Tuesday to Friday

 

Corrosion does amazing things to metal mechanisms (as I found out as a boy, working on boats exposed to salt water). I'm glad you finally worked out how to tackle this one.

Noel

 

Lovely.