Heritage restoration work by the Restoration and Archiving Trust, based at Toddington, Gloucestershire.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
wednesday 22nd October a lovely clear autumn day
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Wednesday 15th a nice dry day.
The day started with clearing the Autumn leaves from the paths
Friday, October 10, 2025
Friday 10th September an unusually warm October day.
During the week the Morris cab has been treated to a few coats of lacquer and is looking good.
The 2nd line wagon is coming along but moving the high pressure hydraulic filters from under the stowage cabinets revealed more rotten floor at the end the top boards have gone the lower set are rotten..
More scraping and sanding then the brown oil based paint covers well and looks a lot tidier.
Not much of a blog but a time consuming job.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Wednesday 1st a lovely October day.
The Mail coach refurb has been going on a while but the top strip is completed, now nice and secure with brass screws and the whole side is looking better but needs a final finish lower down..
The roof has had one coat after the scraping of the peeling paint and a rub down it looks a lot better.
The BAC metal printer has been strippeed as it prints the letters but the end termination cut was inoperative, the die is missing where the guillotine goes down into it.This is obviously a easily changed service item back in the day, but now we may have to get one machined from plate metal..
The die location in the print wheel The brass and steel guillotine.
The main mechanical frame the discs sit on.
New foam seat squabs have been acquired for a coach rebuild but and original base needed stripping back this involved removing loads of tacks and 1.5" nails
Measuring the Morris door several months ago for rubber it came out around 18mm wide the18mm rubber channel I located is measured across the inner sides so it is too wide, full length cutting will be needed to remove a section from the width so it fits nicely..
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It was then time for line wagon 2 which needs the peeling paint removed and a big tidy around before being repainted using an oil based paint that had being thrown into a skip, It will be a while before the interior is starting to look better and habitable. Number 2 wagon with number 1 in the back ground
On climbing in it is a mess from the work already done on the roof and the tools left in there along with general detritus from the owner.
The northern end of the interior before starting work
After a good scraping and sanding it looks better.
The old tools on the floor needed removing to gain access and a sweep around followed by the dustpan and brush got it tidier
After the application of one coat of old oil based paint it looks a lot better, the steel sheet is covering a hole in the floor that could not support my 16 stone on one size 12 boot so new floor boards required.
wednesday 22nd October a lovely clear autumn day
Walking in on platform one I noticed the pop up racing pigeon was not visible and a quick look in he was lying on the bottom of the cage ups...

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Working on GWR Collett coach 4777 today. This circular metal plate was an addition, when the vehicle was converted for departmental use, i...
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A personal archive of interesting photos of the early days of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway. Cadbury No 1 arriving at Toddingto...
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The Hand Auger Keith pulled a rusty, handle less auger out from the back of beyond, he cleaned it in the blast cabinet and then polished a ...