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Ripening in the Sun
Several of our members, including Tom Tighe, Nick Broderick, Jim & John Street, Peter Maynard and Simon Cheeseman went to Southall on Sunday to re-connect 45305’s engine and tender and sort out the contents of the support coach ready for the Five’s main line season, which kicks off later this week with the Five and Oliver Cromwell double-heading on the South- western leg of the Great Britain mega-railtour for the Railway Touring Company. Of course, Cromwell's season has already begun.
While they were busy there, Hugh Milton spent Sunday at Loughborough scraping & painting the roof of 14055. Although coaches look narrow, they certainly aren’t when you have to scrape every square inch, clean out the gutters and then apply paint. Thanks to Hugh’s efforts, the first coat is half finished (a stripe down the middle section) and the remaining area is cleaned ready for painting so next time someone with a paintbrush is available they ‘just’ need to whiz down the edges to finish off the first coat, then a quick follow up with the top coat and job done.
While Hugh was upstairs cleaning and painting, Alison cleaned bogie pin assemblies ready for Luke Calladine to re-fit. The coach is coming on, which is good, because we’ll need it later this summer when we expect have all three engines out there earning their keep and all needing support crews and workshop facilities. (Coughs behind hand, any contributions of time or money would be very gratefully received)