Wednesday 8th April 2026 a lovely sunny summer day

                                   

The AA box has received a newly painted petrol can and the door edging strips were found to be warping and falling off so requiring a drill, countersink and a screw to get them flat again.

With the  GWSR Vintage  weekend on this Saturday and Sunday it is hoped the classic car fraternity will appreciate this exhibit.

       

Nice and warm so ideal for floor painting in Honeybourne box and Taylors office, so more sweeping hovering and moving exhibits so we can apply grey floor paint.

However once in thw Honeybourne museum it is apparent that some thing have moved in the display cabinets so reposition them first.

Then down to the cleaning and painting.

                             The glass is in on the line side oil lamp hut so this is ready for a repaint

Taylors office floor got the same treatment.

The line side 2 wagon interior paint is a bit shiny so a coat of matt lacquer has been applied.

The Scammel Scarab was covered in dust from the gravel drive and rain so a wipe and wash with the hosepipe made it look better.

The load on the rear is weathering so a recoat with gloss black improved the visual look to something in transit for use rather than scrap iron.

 

With the addition of new petrol and a squirt of easy start it fired up easily and ran so the solar panel is keeping the battery charged so time to inflate the well perished tyres to 30psi or 2 Bars to save any that are well rotted from exploding. Engine running well and tyres inflated it was time for a few shunts backwards and forwards to clean the brake drums up.

Now the sun had dried that water after the wash down peeling paint stood out so a quick sand down and repaint was needed.

The 2Ton 5 cwt Morris cab has also had work done, one door window is in but with the wrong winder because the correct one has been temporarily mislaid.

And the bulkhead has had a  plate welded in after having the rust cut out.

All these things now look more inviting to encourage visitors to get closer and go inside to look around with the vintage weekend being the test.

 Wednesday 1st April 2026 a nice dry summer day so time to crack on getting the displays ready for the influx of visitors no time for jokes today..

An old fire extinguisher rack has been repainted and the extinguisher cartridges cleaned up ready for mounting in the line side wagons as period kit;

                                        

Taylors office is looking tired and dirty after the winter spell with nature and the birds getting in along with a good coating of dust. So  a good sweep out  dusting and treatment of the work tops with lanolin followed by hovering all the insect debris out and cleaning the windows.

        

           The till needed a polish                                 The floor needs a repaint

     The travel chest needs a clean                           The outlook before cleaning

All the brass in the building is looking tired and dirty so before a good clean it looked like this.

                                                       

                                             Apart from the floor painting it is ready for summer.

The 1874 building needed a sweep out and tidy around as the dead leaves from Autumn were still blowing around.

      

Foss Cross has a good amount of dead leaves in so the leaf sucker was brought into action, moving and replacing exhibits was necessary to get at them all                                                         

                                                                                                                After

                                                                           

                                                  The leaves added to the bonfire

                                       

The line side oil lamp hut had had a pellet put through a window pain in the past so glass out although the old putty was rock hard and not willing to come off easily. Some old glass will be cut and fitted to keep the period look.

                                            

When dumping the broken glass in the skip a near new hand drill was spotted so this is now in the Trust shop for sale to give it a new life.

                                   

The Honeybourne signal box floor also requires a repaint so some big stuff out into the oil hut then a good sweep out and tidy around.

            

It was then time to strap the GWR notice board onto the car roof and visit Hayles Abbey halt to mount it on the waiting room ready to have some relevant period posters mounted on it. Another scrap item that has been saved and reused on the railway/.

                                        

As we departed 3850 came up the line in reverse so the first train to see the newly mounted sign board.

 Scrap Metal Recycling Bin

We have been collecting Scrap metal to aid with funding our restorations,

to date we have raised £14,500.

We collect non ferrous metals in the form of old copper pipework, brass taps, cable, car batteries lead and more, we  now have an old steel Steamer trunk rescued from a skip that is now a repository for donations.

This can include domestic scrap, so we hope that this is a facility that will be used and ensure that those donations go to the correct categories for recycling.

  The Steamer, recycling trunk.

As it was before

An old GWR document rack

This artefact has been mentioned before but Keith and I stripped it down depainted sanded and reassembled and installed in the GWR tool van used as the main workshop of the GWSR volunteers responsible for the amazing wagon restorations.

It now contains the essential files on the work that has been done to each wagon in the growing fleet.

 Work on the rebuild of the Morris Commercial, continues.

The previous weld on the bottom of the offside door pillar had rusted through 

So a new patch was made, and welded in

 Wednesday 11th April a nice spring morning where a warm sun got involved which is unusual as it is Gold Cup week so snow is common.

The railway is busy twice a day as the race trains are on for the Cheltenham Festival.

                                            

We are after more volunteers to help do the practical work as the pile although a lot smaller is still significant and there is ongoing work just to keep exhibits in good order that are on public display.

To join you need to be a paid up member of the gwsr and complete a rail health & safety course to get a work permit which renews annually  For more information contact Mr Greg Wigg at Tewkesburydirect@googlemail.com about the Restoration & Archiving Trust.

We have a document stowage box in need of repair as it is useful and carriage and wagon group have expressed interest in it for their records keeping.

                                                    

job one is remove all the shelves for sanding and stripping so the sides were opened up as the shelves slots are a closed end.

                                                  

It had been lacquered and painted a couple of times in it's life and the grain had gone dark where it was exposed so a full sanding and stripping then a session with the sanders got it looking more like it did when new.

             

                                        The paint is off and after a good sanding all over.

                

reassembly proved difficult trying both ends of the shelves at the same time so we started again and glued them all fully in on one end with the aid of a sash clamp. Once the glue is set the top can the be clamped down starting at one end.

                                   

The line side oil hut tin repair is now completed as we had the front corner to do, this  time it was a long lever on a block to lift the corner so we could get the trolley jack in and plock the shed clear of the floor that way we could slide the sheet up into position not down.

Hopefully that job is now completed for us as the junior group or Tewkesbury evening group can paint it and install the appropriate oil and tool goodies.

               

The item I forgot to take a photo of last week the completed sharpening stone, now locked near solid to prevent injuries by rotating parts. It will be sited outside the line side hut when that is completed.

Finally after many months we dropped the bed frame back on the Morris dropside truck.       

                                                                                                                                          

By then we had run out of time.