loads of cleaning

Saturday 4 June began with the cleaning of 43106 The Flying Pig as the Bridgnorth service engine.
We had a very impressive turnout of cleaners, including several un-rostered hands, making up to a total of TEN cleaners present - all mucking in with cleaning up the loco ready for the day.

The outside of the engine was clean and polished by about 8am, which gave some extra time to clean areas that often do not get much attention, including a thorough clean of the cab roof.

Once the engine had gone off shed, OliHux and StuartS started on applying GW light stone paint to the upper tower and boom of the yard water column using the scaffolding tower.

MelW, JamesN and DavidE got working on cleaning and rubbing down the journals of 1501's wheelset and touching paintwork around the wheels with chassis black gloss.

AdamT and RichardM continued painting up 813 wheels in an attempt to get them all into first topcoat by the end of the weekend. One wheel was an exception as it still had to go into second layer undercoat.

A small group of volunteers meanwhile were occupied outside helping to move along 7812's washout process.

The need for 7812's washout and a tender bearing problem on 46443 prevented both engines from being in service this weekend. We shall hopefully see them both back in traffic by next weekend.

Nearing the end of the day a very enthusiastic but determined group of cleaners undertook to replace the gaskets on both of 4566's injector steam valves. Helping with this were cleaners HughS, AdamT, MikeW, RichardM and PaulJ. Despite several problems including bolts refusing to go back in, the task was completed inside of quite impressive time constraints.