A small workparty was held over the above weekend. Attendees were Josh Quirk, Carl Rayner, Sean Sharples, Chris Cheney, Graham Miles and Jane Bibey.

A short report is below courtesy of Carl Rayner.

A small band of Group members attended this weekend. My own intention was firstly to paint the second compressor, which is now ready for re-assembly by one of the Technical Officers. I also wanted to tidy up both containers, partly to lessen the chance of someone breaking their neck and also to free up more space for the next influx of spares, which is likely once the two poorer compressors are split. Graham Miles also dropped off a second water pump.

On the Sunday, Sean Sharples began a pet project of his own and began preparing the bogies for repainting. Even with the help of Josh Quirk and myself the enormity of the task soon became apparent, three wire brushes being no match for the accumulated grime and brake dust collected over ‘040’s working career. Unfortunately the pressure washer at Dereham was unavailable and so it was recommended that a liberal sloshing of redundant engine oil over the bogies would both give some protection from the elements and loosen up the brake dust for when the washer became available. Jane Bibey helped out with this in between the far more important task of keeping us all fed. One side of one bogie and one buffer beam was completed before ‘040 needed to be shunted elsewhere. Sean was later assisted by Jon Batley in clearing the engine room of oily rags and giving some of the internal paintwork a clean.

Now that the container was tidy, Chris Cheney took the opportunity to give the recently arrived batteries the once-over. These turned out to be in rather good fettle, and a quick check of the oldest cells on the locomotive soon found a likely candidate for replacement, before rain and bad light stopped play around tea.