Not quite what we had hoped for!

 As we are all probably more than aware, June 21st passed with the Government extending lockdown rules for another month. This meant that the proposed restart of normal services on the railway didn't happen, ergo the diesel fleet would have to potentially wait again before being allowed out of hibernation fully. So, it was back to continuing to prepare ready for when we do, finally, get the go ahead. 

The Sunday just gone (27th June) saw 'Diesel Day 3' with 47376 'Freightliner 1995' doing the honours. As with the previous two days, the ticket sales were good - so much so that extra seats were made available. However, on the day, the numbers weren't quite as hoped, but there was still a decent number in attendance to enjoy the first run of 47376 since 2019. The weather, lockdown extension and the Mid Hants Diesel Weekend may have affected numbers but those in attendance certainly enjoyed the day bringing much needed revenue to the railway as well as to the Brush Type 4 Group coffers.

47376 departs on the 1000 Toddington - Cheltenham RC.

Trainee Signaller Mark Wilson prepares to take the token at Toddington Box as 47376 returns. 

After returning from it's first visit to Broadway, the 'Duff' heads back towards Cheltenham.

Heading away from Toddington towards the 5mph TSR at Toddington Yard South turnout. 

Back at Toddington MPD there were a few of us around with work continuing predominantly on Class 26, D5343. More cutting of rotten metalwork had occurred on the Saturday courtesy of the man with the cutting discs, Dave S. Dave had also managed to weld in some new bits of steel as well as conducting one other important duty.....involving Cat C. Although she was well and truly getting her paws under the table, general consensus was that the yard was no place for a cat to live so, with help from his partner, Dave was able to capture Cat C and take her to Cheltenham Animal Rehoming Centre. Hopefully she will find a home where she can get all the attention she craves - and not get covered in dust, oil and grease! 

Anyway, back to the locos...…

A nice new piece of steel on the front of D5343.

One of the many areas that requires new steel is a central patch on No. 1 end of the loco where, in the 1970s, many of the class (D5343 included) were fitted with a pair of headlights for use on the Far North lines in Scotland....an early forerunner of the high intensity headlights subsequently fitted to all locos in the mid/late 1980s.

26043 at Thurso on 21st June, 1978 clearly showing the headlights between the centre discs. (Courtesy of the Derby Sulzers website, https://www.derbysulzers.com/inverness.html) 

This area had been plated over when the headlights were removed however, the steel and filler that had covered the repair had degraded causing a depression and the paint to fracture. With other body work repairs ongoing, the chance was taken to repair this as well - even though Dave had only painted the front ends back at the beginning of 2020.

There was a team of 4 of us working on the body work on the Sunday with myself, Simon and two relative newbies, Adrian and Gareth - cue the shouts of 'which one' when any one called out 'Gareth'! The loco was shunted out of the David Page shed with all eyes on the weather as the McRat is currently minus its fibreglass roof section, however we were lucky with only a passing light shower during the middle of the afternoon. 

Out on the apron of  Road 6, Adrian made a start with the sander on the cab roof above No. 2 end before dragging the steps down to the other end to sand off the cab roof of No. 1 end.  

Adrian makes a start sanding around the cab roof. You can see the steel removed from the side of the loco and the solebar has had a start made on paint removal. 

Gareth was given the job of sanding off one of the engine room doors down in the CMDG container before giving Simon a hand with a couple of preparatory jobs on the engine. 

I was armed with the needle gun to start, clearing out rust from a channel that runs along the body of the loco in the engine room, although it would normally be covered by the engine room floor. It was a very common place for water and other fluids to collect and therefore the rust accumulation was pretty high. With the new cuts done by Dave S the previous day we could easily access these areas to clean them out and then coat them in Zinc primer paint. 

You can see the extent of the corrosion that has occurred around the pipe and along the gully. 

The corrosion was cleared using a needle gun and a hoover before the application of the Zinc Primer. 

I also stripped some of the paint from the base of the electrical cubicle so that it could also be treated with the Zinc primer as the water ingress had eaten a number of small holes in the side. 

Paint stripping on the electrical cubicle.

I was later joined by Adrian on applying the Zinc as Simon wanted to move the loco onto Road 9 so that we could finish off some work on the Cotswold side of the loco. With the loco moved, I joined Adrian on the sanders to finish off the bodyside. It was possible to make out the mark of the 'Lion and Wheel' emblem by the end of the day as well as the many coats of colours that the loco had worn when in service, including BR Green, BR Blue and Civil Engineers!

Some Civil Engineers yellow shining through.

Back in the shed Steve M set up the charger in order to give D8137's batteries some juice with a view to firing up the engine just to keep it ticking over. He then set up taking one of his spare traction motors apart to give the armature a clean and to check the overall condition of the unit just in case there is a need to swap traction motors over on the bogies of D8137. Its been a couple of years since the 'chopper' was taken out of service due to a power fault, but Steve remains hopeful of getting the green 'Type 1' in to service before the end of the year. With his former ED, E6036, now safely arrived at the Cambrian Heritage Railway, Oswestry, focus is now on getting D8137 and 20228 back into serviceable condition. 

Tom and Kevin were busy with the Bubble Car, centring their work around the backing framework for the windows. The previous weekend also saw some work on the 3-Car Class 117 and on W51360 repairing some areas where the paintwork had started bubbling. W51360 has also had its historic crash damage repaired by Carriage and Wagon and is now awaiting some new yellow paint. The CDRL have also announced the putting up for sale of Class 107 DMSL, Sc52029. The DMSL arrived at Toddington back in 2015 (I think) with a view to pair it up with W51360 as a power twin set. However, given the manpower needed to tackle the refurbishment of the Class 122 and Class 117 vehicles - as well as the spare Class 117 DMS, W51372 and TCL, W59505 - the group have seen fit to let the Class 107 go. If you are interested, or know someone/a group that may be, you can see the information at http://www.gwsr-dmu.co.uk/offers-invited-for-52029/  

Class 107, DMSL, Sc52029, still wearing a patchwork Strathclyde PTE paint scheme at Toddington Yard. 

As far as diesel running goes for 2021, all eyes are now on the new Secretary for Health and the Prime Minister and their next announcement on or before the 19th July. There is one confirmed running day with the recent announcement of a 4th Diesel Day on Sunday 18th July with 37215 as the booked motive power again. As previous, tickets have to be pre-booked and you can do that via the GWSR online ticket portal - https://gwsr.vticket.co.uk/product.php/533/diesel-running-on-sundays

37215 returns to shed after the first 'Diesel Day' in April 2021.

Hopefully this will be the precursor for much more favourable news on the following day. Keep hoping!

Hot, hot, hot!

With temperatures peaking at around the 30 degree C mark yesterday (Sunday 13/06), it's been a proper early summer at Toddington. When the weather is like it has been there aren't many better places to be working, although shade is at a minimum in the yard and you have the sun all day. However, the photo below just gives you an idea of how amazing the surrounding areas look...

11230, DES, 45149 and W51360 bask in the sun in this view from D5343 looking towards Didbrook. The rolling, green hills of the Cotswolds loom in the background.  

On arrival the temperature was already pushing 22 degrees C but there were still a fair number of us in attendance. Waiting patiently by the door was our 'new' member of staff!

Our new furry friend, Cat C - not sure where the name comes from but there are a couple of theories, one involving a car accident on the Toddington roundabout!

It appears that the department has been adopted! Now, she (we think) may look adorable but several cuts, bites and abrasions testify to the fact that she has a very low patience threshold...even when being fed or scratched! We aren't quite sure where she has come from as she just appeared at the end of May. We suspect that she is from one of the local farms but, as you can see she has made herself very much at home. She has been checked for a microchip, but she isn't chipped - Dave S had the job of trying to get her in a cage, which he did without serious injury (round of applause, please!) - and an advert has gone out to see if anyone is missing a cat. She even has a new hi-viz collar, although it is a non-standard green. In the meantime she is being well looked after, fed and watered and is happy just lying around, especially on the rugs we take our boots off on! Although she did wander into the shed on the Monday to help Kev and Steve with some work testing blower motors! 

Speaking of Monday, Steve M's former loco E6036 was shunted into the car park on Sunday morning ready to be picked up on the Monday and taken to its new home, the Cambrian Heritage Railway at Oswestry. After feeding the new recruit, Simon, Alex and I wandered down to the yard, accompanied by DOO James, to shunt the ED as well as TSO 4869 which has been sold to the Ecclesbourne railway. The TSO was one of the former charter MK.1s from Bounds Green depot but has been sat at Winchcombe for some time. Not sure why it was sold (our C&W colleagues would be able to confirm) as it seemed to be in reasonable nick on the face of it...although the dreaded 'A' word was mentioned in passing. 

Simon shunts TSO 4869 back on to E6036 with Alex controlling the shunt. 

The ED was then placed in the car park and the TSO on the unloading road to await its own collection.

E6036 awaits transporting to its new home. Its sad to see it go but it will certainly get a lot more use at it's new home. 

The TSO had arrived at Toddington along with Class 117 DMBS, W51360 which had been receiving body work repairs to its cab side. 'Peak' 45149 had taken some ballast wagons down to Winchcombe for stabling (where they will now be based; easier for C&W to check them over and repair them) and then took a couple of others down to Gotherington for them to be loaded for a drop at Southam. When this had been completed the Peak returned north, picking up the DMBS and TSO and returning them to Toddington. See our sister blog for Carriage and Wagon posted on June 09th for pics from blogger Alex C. W51360 certainly looks a lot better than before it went to C & W - 

W51360's war wound has been repaired at C&W. A really top job. (Courtesy of the Cotswold Diesel Railcar Limited)

Once we had completed the shunt it was time to draw Class 26, D5343, back into the yard for more work to be conducted. More steel has been welded on the lower bodyside to replace some badly corroded panels and beams as well as more cutting out at Cant Rail level on both sides. There was also a lot more sanding, courtesy of Chris M, who finished the day looking like a smurf!

Chris gets to grips with the sander. You can see the new welded steel just to Chris's left above the solebar. The new areas that had been cut out are below the vents on the roof. 

There were some amazing colours with some of the older paint showing through.....

Hint of Civil Engineers?

Alex was initially tasked with jet washing the underside of the fibreglass roof section, to hopefully remove some the soot, oil and general crud that would have accumulated on it since 2013.

Alex gets to grips with the pressure washer on the fibreglass roof section. With the heat in the yard waterproofs were definitely not needed!

Armed with a needle gun, my job was to clear any left over rust, paint or adhesive on the cant rail metal work before cleaning them and adding primer. 

Some of the cant rail steel prior to priming. This side was completed prior to shunting the loco back into the David Page shed. 

Simon was busy with knocking out damaged rivets as well as making a start on needle gunning the other side of the loco. By about 4pm it was time to start thinking of getting the loco back in the shed before the steam crews returned. Looking at the state of the crew of P&O when she returned on shed I felt a bit better that I had only the heat of the sun to contend with. The poor blokes must've lost an incredible amount of fluids whilst crewing as its universally accepted that P&O's footplate is not the most airy at the best of times! I think I would have been tempted just to stand under the water tank for a while just to cool off!

Simon at the far end of the loco, Chris at the near end. By this point the sun was really starting to take its toll!

In the relative coolness of the shed, Tim L was busy cleaning the floor of the shed around 1693 as the final preparations are made for its repaint. After the amount of work put in by the BT4F the last thing needed was huge amounts of dust ruining the new paint work....plus, as we have not had any gala or events for over 18 months, the floor had become pretty filthy as the normal routine of cleaning prior to any public access to the shed had not been carried out. Sister loco, 47376 'Freightliner 1995' was basking out in the sun so that the floor could be cleaned properly, but also a little bit of prep work had been carried out ready for its turn on the final 'Diesel Day' on June 27th. It's very pleasing to announce that all three 'Diesel Days' have been sell outs bringing in some much needed revenue to the groups but also allowing crews to regain competence.      

DES also received some attention from co-Owner Paul J. The batteries on the shunter had run flat although the reason was unknown for the draining. Paul decided that he was going to head up and recharge them but also re-fit a BIS (Battery Isolation Switch). 

DES's batteries get some much needed juice.

Paul ran the engine up and it successfully ran without issue for over an hour...both before and after fitting of the BIS. Hopefully that will see DES back in traffic without any further battery issues. 

On the DMU front, the 3-car Class 117 set had some much needed TLC with polishing being completed on both sides of the unit. The restoration of the Class 122 'bubble car' has started to pick up pace again with a lot of work around the door frames being ticked off the list. The final door lock backing plate has been welded in place and the door panels have all been glued in place. The worn lino has been ripped up and a start has been made on removing the levelling compound. There has also been a test fitting of a new doorstep which has fitted in with minimal fuss. 

Class 24, 5081, has had its B Exam and Paul Good was happy enough to pass it despite a few small issues being identified. This brings our serviceable mainline fleet to four locos - 5081, 37215, 45149 and 47376, however, at the time I write this, the likelihood of lockdown being relaxed completely on June 21st seems less and less likely with every passing second. 5081 is scheduled to be the first loco to work a normal service this year so it is hoped that, if lockdown is extended, that the timetable may be amended to include more opportunity for the diesels to get a run as, if they don't, retraining and recertifying crew will become even more difficult.....bearing in mind we have only had three running days since we were allowed to restart services!

We can only hope!