curator

A hot sunny morning for the team after the fortnights holiday break, but fortunately for Allan Black, Charles Benedetto, Pete Thomas and John Olsen the yard by the Gunpowder Store is shaded by trees.

The first task of the day was to assist Keith Theobald in getting the platform scales, that had been repainted by Steve Crane, out of the Store and into the Weighbridge house. To make the task possible we first shunted the new wagon no. 136 frame and the old Corris Mail Waggon frame west out of the way. Then the scales were partially dismantled to lighten them, as it is an extremely robust cast iron item, followed by laying down plywood and sterling board sheets to roll it over so that Keith could get the Bobcat forks under it. A delicate lifting and moving operation got the weighing machine to another set of boards leading into the Weighbridge House where it was tipped on its side and manhandled through the doorway, rolled across the floor and into its final resting place in the north west corner; where it was re-assembled allowing the temporarily displaced furniture to be brought back inside.

With a growing thirst, and the first train waved away, we went into the relative cool of the cafe for our coffee break in the company of Ann McCanna, Malcolm Phillips, Andy Sheffield, Mike Green and Tom Place. Even inside the chocolate on the biscuits was becoming runny in the heat.

Back in the yard the Corris wagon frame was shunted back up beside the Store and the metal basket of the ex GWR steel bodied slate wagon moved away from its frame and placed atop the upturned Corris wagon body; this was to make the remaining stripping and priming activities easier.

Allan cleaned off one end and then use the acid etch primer to protect the newly cleaned metal. Pete used an angle grinder with cutting wheel fitted to cut off more rusted on nuts to release another internal corner plate from the Corris frame while John used an old fashioned hacksaw to cut through one of the drawbar fixing bolts. Charles applied the second coat of black bitumenous paint to the new floorplate of wagon no. 136 and left it to dry.

The wagon cover was placed over the metal basket to protect the bare metal from the forecast rain later in the week and the site tidied of tools and tripping hazards.

Photos by Allan Black and John Olsen

In this week’s absence of the regular gang, Talyllyn Tracksiders stepped forward to paint the Pooley weighbridge. The weather mojo arranged a hot and sunny afternoon for the purpose. We also cleared room in the gunpowder store for the impending delivery of the weighing machine currently at Abergynolwyn.

A glorious sunny morning today to greet the team in Wharf Yard; Allan Black, Pete Thomas, Charles Benedetto and John Olsen made the most of it.

The cover was removed from wagon no. 136, the three bar ex TR slate wagon, and its newly galvanised floorplate and a quick game of ‘try it in all possible orientations to make sure we’ve got it the right way round and right way up’. It was in the correct orientation already! Then the wagon chassis was rolled into the sun for Charles to wash it prior to its first coat of black bituminous paint.

Allan got to work with an angle grinder fitted with wire wheel, scrubbing rust out of the nooks and crannies of the ex GWR slate wagon metal basket and Pete and John wielded hammers and spanners on the dwindling number of nuts and bolts holding the Corris wagon together.

We waved away the first train of the day before going for our morning coffee out on the platform where the hot sun proved to be a hazard to both the chocolate digestives and the Jammy dodger biscuits, but the last of Andy’s biscuits were scoffed before the heat got to them. We were joined by duty attendant Mark Gibson, Max Birchenough, nursing a painful back, Keith Theobald and Tom Place for our coffee, chocolate and chat.

John performed a quick bit of dismantling on our old red donation stand to reclaim usable bits, before returning to the yard, as we now have a very smart cylindrical perspex donation station just behind William Finlay; be sure to admire and ‘feed’ it on your next visit to Tywyn.

Back on the wrong side of the tracks Charles painted the floorplate with black paint that was drying almost as quickly as he applied it, Allan scrubbed away more rust and old paint and the last, of four, horizontal axlebox bolts succumbed to Pete and John’s combined attention. They followed this up with cutting through a central bolt on the brake gear that allowed them to remove the brake shoes and the operating arm, having first labelled the shoes to make re-assembly easier.

There will be a two week holiday break in working parties, with the team returning to Wharf Yard on Thursday 15th June.

Photos by Allan Black and John Olsen

A warm and sunny morning for a reduced size team after last week; Allan Black, Andy Sheffield, Pete Thomas and John Olsen got out our newly PAT tested power tools to continue dismantling the Corris Mail Waggon and de-rusting the metal basket of the ex GWR slate wagon.

Our first job was to turn the metal basket over so that the undersides of all the slats and rim could be properly cleaned up, then Allan could settle down to the task. Andy, Pete and John used a selection of spanners, sockets, air gun and hammers to undo more of the rusty bolts holding the Corris wagon iron work on the frame. The last cross bar, which supported the second brake shoe, succumbed to hitting with the lump hammer to remove it from the frame, revealing it had a slight bow in it, quite possibly a result of the non perpendicular holes through the frame.

With this out and several more nuts successfully removed we stopped for our coffee break out in the sun on the platform, in the company of Mike Green and David Broadbent. A serious dent in Andy’s chocolate covered Hobnob supply ensued over our caffeine and chat.

Refreshed we returned to the yard to our tasks and deployed an angle grinder with metal cutting disc on the Corris wagon as the nuts on the coach bolts holding the SW corner angle plate were seizing and then the bolt spinning as the rotten timber failed. But we managed to remove the SW corner plate, much wasted by corrosion, and the four bolts holding the brake operating arm so that the brake gear can now be dis-assembled.

Our morning was made complete by Chris Johnson delivering our galvanised floor plate for wagon no. 136; we quickly removed it from the flatbed van and placed it on the wagon frame. By great good fortune it was the right way up and the right way round so that we were able to put the wagon cover back on to keep it dry ready for cleaning and painting next week. The metal basket is now ready for a final clean down and priming as well.

Photos by Allan Black and John Olsen

A dry start brought out a good showing for this mornings working party. Allan Black, Andy Sheffield, Charles Benedetto, Pete Thomas, Max Birchenough and John Olsen were in the yard to continue cleaning up the ex GWR metal slate wagon basket and further dismantle the Corris mail waggon.

Allan and Max had to wait a short time before they could start applying the wire wheel equipped angle grinders to the basket as our electrical kit was being PAT tested this morning, but after about 15 minutes delay they were busy. The rest of the gang attempted to shift the nuts on the cross bars of the Corris wagon, but even after heating up with a blow torch the first nut remained unmoved. This was partly due to the long cross bars acting as torsion bars thus cushioning any attempt to use a hammer on a spanner to break the rust ‘seal’. Reluctantly John agreed that we should cut away the nut on one end and then extract the bar. Andy set to work with an angle grinder fitted with a cutting disc, but even with the side of the nut cut away it still took some ‘persuading’ with a hammer and cold chisel to start turning the remnant of the nut.

We stopped for our coffee break when Ann McCanna and Mike Green arrived on site and sat out on the platform in the warm sunshine that had broken through the cloud layer. We all squeezed up to make a space for Tom Place to join us as we tucked into the chocolate biscuits.

Returning to the yard Allan and Max continued the patient task of removing old paint and rust while the rest of the gang removed the two end cross bars after the nuts on one end had been cut away; but even then the bars needed to be hammered out of the frame revealing that the metal within the wooden frame had rusted very badly. Our attention then turned to the first of the two cross bars that hold the brake shoes, first with the cutting disc, then the hammer and chisel and then the hammer on the bar. The bar didn’t shift! It took the two pound lump hammer and a good swing before it began to move and only when it finally came out did we find the cause of such resistance to movement; the end had been bent into a shallow S shape. It seems unlikely that this occurred due to any operational mishap as the bar is nearly 3/4” thick, so we must presume it was intentionally bent, possibly to correct for an incorrect position of the hole in the frame causing problems with operating the brake shoes.

Rather than attempting to remove the other big cross bar we finished the morning on one of the smaller horizontal bolts holding one of the axleboxes in place using Pete’s hammer action compressed air tool, but the degree of rusting defeated it. Only after heating the nut with the blow torch and then giving the spanner a whack with a hammer did it finally begin to unscrew the bolt. It seems that the frame has been very wet for long periods of time and this not only resulted in the rot in the headstock joints, but has also likely severely corroded every single bolt passing through the frame.

We were presented with a salvaged, and slightly bent, brake operating lever and shaft from a TR slate wagon by Mike Christiansen who had salvaged it from the stream in Abergynolwyn; thank you Mike. This might make a working brake lever on a future wagon rebuild once cleaned up and straightened out.

Photos by Allan Black and John Olsen