Hello darkness my old friend…

Probably our last post on here before Christmas, so thought I’d come wish you all well during the festive period and update you on what’s been happening!

From the picture above, you will see that at our most recent work day, the 3 of us worked well into the darkness, only stopping because the wind was making it impossible to do anything!

The majority of the day was spent moving tools / wagon parts out of the diesel stores carriage belonging to the CVR. I must commend Jim on his incredible work to clear and completely reorganise our group’s container. Everything now has a place, however we could still do with an additional container to increase storage capacity.

The above image shows the set up we had created for the work activities, however the wind caused Adam’s gazebo to put up a good fight. As well as this, the wind also made it difficult for Adam’s gas tools, as before he’d had a chance to move the torch to the metal, the wind had already extinguished the flame. With some perseverance though, Adam managed to remove 1 of the 2 remaining metal bits. We hope to have the second one removed at the end of our next work day on the 27th.

As you can see, the heads of the rivets were no match for the gas axe! The hope is that with the second bit off, we can rebuild it with the metal we have ready in stock. Jim has been working his magic in the background sourcing some very good quality metal, for a very good price.
The mag drill is at the ready, so fingers crossed we will see some larger progressive streps in the near future.

Due to us being open to the public, we were unable to do much needle gunning. We’ve found the needle guns are by far the most time efficient tool for the job and make light work for the deteriorated paint. The only downside being the horrendous noise they make! Jim still made use of the time by wire wheeling some areas that had already been tackled in preparation for some anti-corrosive primer.

Don’t get me wrong, we still have so much to do but I do look back and think how on earth I would have done this without Adam & Jim. Their enthusiasm and support has made the last few months so incredibly enjoyable, I hope 2025 is more of the same. We do have some exciting updates on the other projects but we will have to wait before we can reveal anymore info!

So to finish, I’d like to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas, a lovely New Year and hope 2025 is a great year for all.
In the meantime, don’t forget to keep up to date over on our Facebook page. See you next year!

Ollie 🚂