We have continued working on the upper frame, several joints have been cut for the cabin door pillars / windows.  Work is in progress fitting the upper door support on the cabin – this needs to be shaped next so when the time comes can be used to screw the roof planks to. 

The new door for 68784 is progressing, the outer frame has been made, just the tong and grove planking to fit now.  Dave has cleaned up all the door fittings and when the time comes will fit them.

Keith has repaired the straps that go inside the cabin of the STD, new bolts have been welded onto the old steel bar – Dave has now started painting them

There is not a great deal to report recently.  We have contented on the BR STD, when we removed the rotten box section a while ago the bolts that are cast onto the concrete were very rotten and snapped.  Obviously they needed to be replaced, we drilled 4 new holes in the concreate and put some studding down,  used chemical bolts and this proved unsuccessful.  It was decided then to drill all the way through the concreate and put bolts down, this entailed drilling through 700mm of concreate.  This did take a while as we kept hitting steal cast in to provide ballast. 

Keith and Dave have been busy repairing the 4 straps that go inside the cabin, they had to weld new bolts on to the plate.

Part of the freight set was out for the diesel gala over the weekend, a “head shunt explorer” was run going down a few bits of track not normally open to the public.  Both GW toads were out on these with the 08 and Grumpy top and tailed