Work in Progress: 5th March

Lots of odd jobs preparing for the weekend trains...

Nigel Thompson returns with this week's Thursday Gang Report.

1. The Thursday Gang tackle a water leak by the stable. A hole was dug, and the leak traced to a redundant end-stop.

2. With the leak now fixed, the hole was back-filled with chippings and limestone dust to complete the job.

3. The next task was to remove the covers from Carriages 16 and 7. The covers having served their purpose by protecting the carriages from the worst of the winter weather.

4. The covers were carefully folded, numbered and prepared for storage.

5. Another job was to cast two more point rod bases from the moulds especially made by Graham Varney. Graham Lee (left) assisted in preparing a concrete mix, which was then vibrated into the moulds using the new vibrator poker recently purchased using the General Manager's Equipment Fund.

6. Nigel Thompson shovels the concrete mix into one of the moulds whilst General Manager Martyn Budd using the new poker, vibrates out the air and settles the concrete mix.

7. After lunch the gang remove redundant fencing wire from the bank above the car park.  Hedge-laying was undertaken in this area recently and this was a part of the general tidying of the site.

8. Roger Bye, Graham Bendell, Dave Evans and Dave Robinson tug old fence wire out of the hedge line.

9. In the shed, Dick Gunn and Don Newnham were busy preparing new steel pipe prior to replace several sections of rusty and corroded point-rodding at the Barnstaple end of the station.

10. Dick and Don using the thread cutter, create a thread on the end of a pipe to enable connectors to be fitted.

11. Finally, Jim Pounds maintained a lonely vigil in the paint-shop working on Carriage No. 17. Jim has been repairing/repainting flaking paint around the door windows and also been touching-up the cream-coloured panels where required.

Other news:
Inside the station building and also in the shed, two of the Electric Daves (Bloomfield and Drayson) were continuing the electrical upgrade programme as well as carrying out repairs to various electrical tools.

The engineering team carried out work on steam locomotives AXE and CHARLES WYTOCK, and Baguley Diesel PILTON.

Words and pictures by Nigel Thompson