A bright sunny morning in Tywyn on the Queens official birthday and the start of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Max Birchenough, Andy Sheffield and John Olsen were on hand to remove the cover from the incline wagon, no. 117, and begin coating the floor with black bitumenous paint.
John returned to the Corris mail wagon as the rotting wood had largely dried out. After removing the loose flaky wood with a wire brush the soft wood was treated with hardener to help exclude any further water penetration. While this was left to harden John then turned his attention to the splayside wagon, no. 213, as rain earlier in the week had revealed that there was still a low point in the floor that was not being drained by the holes he inserted last week.
The first train of the day was double headed by No’s 3 and 4, with the latter carrying the museum’s Queen’s Coronation Headboard; we paused in our labours to take photos.
By coffee time much of the incline wagon floor had been painted and the site of a new drainage hole had been cleaned up with a wire brush ready for drilling.
We joined Ann McCanna and Mary Sheffield at their table on the platform and were joined by John Alderslade, duty attendant, Mike Green and Neal Chapman for our coffee, biscuits and chat.
We returned to the tasks in hand and completed the painting of the floor of the incline wagon, which we left uncovered to let the paint dry more rapidly. With a new hole drilled John primed the bare metal with grey acid etch primer and then treated the last unpainted nuts and bolts on the covered wagon, no. 146, which is currently on the Wharf Edge siding.
Photos by John Olsen