August 09th, 2022

The theme running through this week's update is gaining new volunteers, following on from our fantastic open day😁
 
On Tuesday we welcomed 3 new volunteers, Mike, David and Tracey. They got stuck in helping with the ongoing restoration and maintenance in the Brake Standard Open (BSO) No. 9406 and Tourist Standard Open (TSO) No. 5220. A deep clean of the running coach TSO No. 5148 also took place. Ben was busy painting seat carcasses ready for when they are needed to be refitted.
 
Paul and Grahame were busy watering and maintaining the gardens at our stations and Trevor was back painting in the cafe and working on some new benches (the one at the cafe appears to have gone missing).
 
In the evening, Dave J, Andrew and Martin used Ruston & Hornsby diesel mechanical No. 313394 'Jammo' and the crane wagon to move the stacked and bound packs of concrete posts from Spring Village yard to the headshunt.
 
We collected a number of photographs that have been kindly loaned to us by the Railway Photographic Society (formerly Rail Camera Club) for an exhibition to be displayed at Railway House. Look out for further information on this exciting new attraction and thank you to John Hillier and members of the Railway Photographic Society for their generous help and support in making this happen. 
 
On Wednesday John was adding more wood vinyl to the TSO No. 5220 and Ben was sorting out Polar Express items in our containers (it is really just over 3 months before it all starts😳).
 
On Thursday Nigel, Dave, Sean, Martin, Allan and Tracey were all working in the coaches. New youth volunteer Miles joined us later to help with some painting. We have made rapid progress over the last few months in our BSO and TSO, and now having more volunteers will allow that progress to become even quicker. 
 
Kev replaced some of the driver and secondman seats in the Class 37 and then began the rewiring the road/rail dumper.
 
On Saturday we welcomed another new volunteer, Brian, into our happy ranks. His first job was to help Kev, Ian, Allan, Nathan and Ben to take out the windows from TSO No. 5220 and re-seal them to make them watertight again and taking some panels off the inside walls. Miles was cleaning down the walls to get them ready for re-vinyling later in the week. An area of body work that was beyond repair was cut out and a new section welded in. With the windows out, the opportunity was taken to replace the timber in the frames where required.  Chris and Martin were busy working on the platform extension at Spring Village, levelling the site and clearing as much of the spoil as possible as the huge pile in the car park was being taken away by contractors (we have started another spoil pile already).  There was a lot of painting going on, the tables for the BSO and TSO ready for fitting, and in the cafe, together with some preparation of the front of the cafe counter ready for re-cladding. 



Pete and Alex were clearing the vegetation and rubbish behind the Cafe and Railway House to make this a usable area for us and our visitors.
 
All of this progress, and we hadn't even run any public services yet. This happened on Sunday when Peckett & Sons W6 No. 1722 'Rocket' was in steam and hauling trains. Ian and Martin were the loco crew this week, with Allan guard and John the travelling ticket inspector (TTI)
 
We welcomed two further new volunteers, Andy and Sean who enjoyed coaling 'Rocket', sanding the outside of the BSO and with Antony, Miles and me, we had enough for a gang to go and start lineside clearing of vegetation. 
 
So, a fantastic week's progress, with 7 new volunteers joining us to go with the 2 that started last Sunday. Most of them have now volunteered more than once and they are already making a positive contribution to the railway. It is great having them on board. Will there be any more?!
 
Thanks as always to Ben, Shaun and Allan for the additional information provided in this update.
 
Our next public service day will be on Sunday 14 August when the Class 108 Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) will be running. First train leaves Spring Village at 11am. No need to pre book, just pay once to ride all day.
 
The next planned event is a 'mixed traffic' weekend on 24th and 26th September. However, this will be dependent on the effect of ongoing disruption and road closures due to the major sewage works being undertaken around our site by Severn Trent Water.