There has been no let up in work as we head towards the Christmas break – well, we might be allowed the one day off at least!
The tracks at the east end of roads three and four in the shed have now been packed which has enabled John Dixon to lay some Visqueen against the rails to stop concrete sticking to them and causing cracks when drying. It also stops the concrete from seeping into the four foot, which isn’t going to be concreted. Ash has now been laid to top up the levels in the six foot and the job now moves on to the shuttering phase.
John has also been continuing his work in the new mess room and another trip to Wickes was planned.
Mike has been lettering the gas compartment doors for the RMB, surely one of the very last jobs remaining on the project. 
Tim has been busy sanding the RSR’s TPO coach and Mike and John Davis have been tackling the replacement of one of the water filler covers. Fred and Roger have continued the job of cleaning and painting the headstocks and bogies. The proofs for the graphics have been received and approved. It was only during this process that it emerged that the dimension panels at the opposite ends of the coach differed, one stating that the width was 2.74m whilst the other showed 2.83m! We have plumped for 2.74m so at least they will be consistent in future, if incorrect!
Adrian has once again been working on the job of cleaning and painting Caliban‘s motion whilst Alan has achieved success at last in removing a stubborn pin from one of the motion retaining collars.
Wootton Hall‘s tender wheels were grit blasted on Saturday and two of the wheelsets had received the attention of David’s paint brush by the end of the day. 
Keith has continued to work on the replacement steel sections for the front of the tender which are now held in place prior to welding at some point in the future.
The RSR’s Santa Specials started this last weekend with Alan and Tim providing the music and various other FRT members assisting. Alison and Jen staffed the sales stand and Alison took the opportunity to photograph Tim’s latest Christmas hat – we’re not sure that Father Christmas will approve of the two legs poking out of the top of the chimney which suggest that he (Santa, not Tim!) has feasted on too many mince pies!
Tim has begun the task of sanding down the sides whilst Mike Rigg and John Davis have been attending to the end sockets which allow access to the water filler pipes. A new cover will be required for one of the sockets. Mike and John have also been removing the seals from around the sliding doors in order to allow access for painting. 
The new replacement warning sign has been affixed to the new gas compartment door and the paint touched up. 
Fred has been cleaning up the bogies with a wire brush and has removed the redundant steps (the bogies came from a different vehicle) whilst Roger has begun the task of applying primer.
And Ade has been attending to Caliban‘s motion, seen here cleaning out one of the holes.
John Dixon has continued the task of fitting out the kitchen area of the new mess room and has found that Wickes now have a kitchen sale as well as a 15% discount because they are reorganising the store! 
Cue the purchase of a new three metre work top!
Two new cabinets for the storage of paint have arrived and been filled and lights have now appeared in the 1st class North London Railway coach which is currently being used to store materials.
They then performed for an hour and a half at Abbeyfield in Ulverston early Sunday afternoon before being joined by George on the out door Theatre Street stage at 4 pm to close down the Dickensian Festival in fine style!
One of the last tasks has been to cast a replacement fibreglass warning sign for the new gas compartment door underneath the frames. Mike and Paul set to on this job on Wednesday afternoon, using the mould that was created some weeks ago, and Mike is seen here on Friday with the results of their labours. Isn’t it great?!
In fact they got carried away, and have also cast a new battery box sign and a replacement weight numeral for the North London Railway coach at the same time, so the replica signs production unit can be said to be well and truly up and running! John Davis and Paul had another production run with spare resin on Friday.
Tim completed the painting of the RSR TPO vehicle’s roof on Friday and Fred and Roger continued to clean the buffer beams (picture above) and bogies (picture below) respectively. 
The replacement graphics for the sides have now been ordered by Karl Latham and should be ready in the next two to three weeks. We just need to rub down, repair and paint the body sides of the vehicle!
Friday was spend trying to understand the instructions for a newly acquired base unit whilst testing the heating system in the mess room! 
Quite conveniently, the local Wickes warehouse is having a 15% discount sale during alterations, so John is under incentive to complete all further purchases before the end of the sale on the 4th December!
The occasion was a big Lego event featuring many, many, models and sale stands which certainly drew the crowds. In fact it was reckoned that the were more people there on Saturday than attended the Autumn Steam Gala with Flying Scotsman in steam and giving rides! It was bitterly cold, but FR20 was kept very busy hauling passengers with Alan, Alison and Tim surviving the conditions, although Tim rues omitting to take the camper van fan heater with him and is still trying to thaw himself out!
Ron was also a local folk legend, having spent his earlier years playing with the late Brian Dewhurst (who coincidentally died the Wednesday before) in the band ‘Horden Raikes’ and, in more recent years, running Longridge Folk Club – he is seen playing there in June 2015 when our own Live Steam were the invited guests. There will be a service at St Paul’s Church, Berry Lane, Longridge, at 12.00 on Tuesday, 14th November followed by committal at Preston Crematorium. Our thoughts and condolences go to Ron’s wife, Barbara, daughter Jennifer and their family.
Tim once again found himself to be the only one professing to be able to crawl through the firehole door and remove the grate. 
Fred blew out the tubes and he and Tim then vied for the ‘dirtiest looking member of the day’ competition by cleaning out the smokebox and firebox respectively.
The new power washer was tried out by cleaning the ashpan before being used to wash out the boiler. Unfortunately, once it had run out of petrol and been topped up again, it developed a petrol leak and refused to start up again – so back to Preston for further technical examination! However, the day was successful and our boiler surveyor was able to give the thumbs up when he undertook the cold examination on Friday. There will be a further meeting at Junction 36 on Thursday morning in order to reassemble FR 20 at Shildon in readiness for its steam test on Friday. All being well FR 20 will be in operation at Locomotion on Saturday and Sunday in connection with a Lego event. Alan, Alison and Tim are planning to accompany these last planned steamings for the loco in 2017.
There has been more snagging work taking place on the RMB, with John Dixon tidying up the varnish where he has repaired the panelling, Mike has been doing some more testing of the electrics (seen here) and John Davis has been cleaning up the aluminium panelling. 
A newly polished ceiling light is also seen here ready for fitting. Tim and Fred have been back on the roof of the TPO vehicle, which has had a through clean up and just needs a final sweep before applying filler and primer where necessary. Howard has finished removing the yellow lining tape on the sides.
Keith took delivery of some new steel plate (from Brazil, apparently) and started cutting it in readiness to be stitched on to the front of Wootton Hall‘s tender chassis.
Two un-machined hydrostatic lubricator warming cocks for the Hall have also been purchased at £60 each and sponsors for these are also sought.
Quite some time was spent last Wednesday assembling the new petrol powered high pressure washer that was donated recently. This was in readiness for the visit tomorrow to Shildon for the preparation of FR 20 for its boiler survey on Friday. Despite actually reading the manual for once (!!) and applying the necessary oil and petrol, the engine refused to start. Fortunately, Ribble Rail’s Jason Finnerty had a look at it and detected that there was no flow of fuel to the engine – it appears that the fuel filter was solid. Once a hole had been drilled in the filter, the engine worked fine!
Saturday saw the long awaited move of the recently acquired mess room into its new resting place by the shed. Keith had laid out some supporting blocks, which John then deemed to be perfectly aligned(!), and the big Hi-ab lorry from JN Civils next door easily managed the job. 
Just the electrics and the drain to sort out now. And maybe now we see a need to keep it grey, but paint the corner posts yellow?!
The weekend also saw the annual spooky trains at the Ribble Steam Railway, who created their own spook called Alan. The two Alans are seen here side by side – guess which is the spook!
Live Steam reunited after a summer’s absence from the music stage to perform at the Engine Inn at Cark – see another spooky photo or two! 
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the band may well be back there for New Year’s Eve.
John Dixon has finished the door frame beadings on the RMB and has been installing new rubber sealing strips at the bottom of the door frames, which should reduce draughts within the coach. John Davis has been undertaking more cleaning within the coach, Mike has been picking out lettering on battery and gas boxes beneath the frames and Paul has been fettling the door locks on the cupboards.
Fred and Roger spent Friday on the ‘magic carpet’ cleaning and de-rusting the north side of its roof.
There is a photo here from the B&KR’s Facebook site showing 5643 approaching Birkhill with a service train the previous weekend. 
Alan has been working all hours to brief crews and to assist in the preparation of the loco and Alison has made a very useful contribution to the Trust’s coffers through the operation of the sales stand in the buffet car. 
Tim visited on Saturday to be followed by Keith on Sunday. Everyone at the B&KR appeared to be impressed by 5643’s performance and seemed to enjoy having its presence there over the two weekends.
John Dixon continued with his woodwork on the RMB door beading, whilst Mike and John Davis cleaned the servery area and re-fitted the water boiler. 
Tim spent the day cleaning the south side of the TPO vehicle roof, which was finished on Friday with the assistance of Fred. Paul has been vacuuming the seats, which now look much better after his attention. 
Howard continued the challenge of removing the yellow tape from the sides of the TPO and on Saturday Howard and David between them managed to finish removing both yellow stripes from the north side of the TPO – as Howard said, parking restrictions have now been removed!
Ade was busy re-assembling the reverser gear on Caliban after some deliberation with Alan as to how it fitted together.
Meanwhile Sam spent a considerable time cleaning up the threads of the studs for Caliban‘s valve covers.
John H is seen here giving Keith a hand, who was removing old rivets from the Hall’s tender frames. 
We had to remind John H that he had been caught red handed working on a GWR loco! 
John Stewart came in on Saturday to do some welding on the frames, seen here, and the buffer beam was then temporarily fitted on to the frames.
As you will recall, 5643 was due to be transported up to the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway on Monday, but when Alan and Alison arrived there on Thursday afternoon it was nowhere to be seen. It finally arrived on Thursday evening to be offloaded on Friday morning. The causes of the delay were driver sickness, a fault with the trailer, flooding on the A65 on Wednesday and a crane fire near Kendal on the M6 on Thursday morning, which caused the northbound carriageway to the closed.
However, having said all that, Alan reports that 5643 ran well on Saturday and Sunday on the B&KR’s service train with barely a slip on that bank past Birkhill. It seems that some of the people attending the photo charter next Friday were trying out South Wales headcode targets (eg Abercynon to Merthyr Tydfil) on the loco to make sure that they would fit. Alison set up a souvenir sales stand in the buffet car as well as taking some photos for us to enjoy.
A working party took place at Embsay on Wednesday with Keith, John Dixon and John Davis travelling across with the newly machined blower ring, refractory concrete and formers for the brick arch together with a variety of tools. The new and old blower rings are pictured above. Alan had also travelled down and the gang were successful in installing the new blower ring before 5643 was drawn out of the shed to allow Alan to put in a warming fire. Alan and John Dixon returned to Embsay on Thursday to fire up the loco for its scheduled steam test at 14.30 which it duly passed.
As promised in last week’s blog, the RMB has moved out of the heated part of the shed with its place being taken by the RSR’s Post Office Sorting Vehicle No. 80377. Tim and David took plenty of measurements and photographs before the graphics are removed to allow painting to take place. Tim then started to remove loose paintwork on the roof whilst, on Saturday, David and Howard commenced the task of removing the two 2″ wide yellow lines which had been taped on to the bodywork. It had been thought that a heat gun would assist in the removal of the tape, but the fact that there are two layers of tape defeated these efforts and so it was necessary to resort to scrapers to make progress.
Adrian made further progress with painting up Caliban‘s components, seen here with one of the pins. There is also a view of a sparkling brake beam.
Meanwhile, Steve Shearing has been spending many hours in the workshop at Preston machining the new blower ring and elbow in readiness for fitting before the steam test. This has been quite a challenge to accomplish in time and it is hoped that it will be ready to fit on Wednesday before the fire is lit! A steam test has been scheduled for Thursday afternoon after which a new brick arch will have to be fitted before the loco leaves Embsay on Monday morning for its visit to the Bo’ness & Kinneil Railway over the following two weekends.
Its place will be taken by the RSR’s Post Office Sorting vehicle No. 80377 which was recently purchased from the Kirklees Light Railway and is planned to be used as an exhibit in the museum. Built in 1972, the vehicle was withdrawn from service in 2004. Whilst, on the surface, it does not appear to be in too bad a condition, there will be plenty of tidying up to do on the bodywork before it can be painted.
A shore electrical supply was connected to the RMB so that the lights could be tested. Although many of them were not working initially, this was mainly because of dirty contacts. By the time that Mike Rigg had finished his work only one light bulb actually had to be changed. 
John Davis (seen here) and Paul carried on the other jobs inside the RMB including polishing the brasswork, which had obviously not seen a cleaning rag for many a year.
At Adrian’s request Tim had brought in a pile of colour charts as Ade has hopes of painting the wheels in the not too distant future. Having brought the number of shades of blue down to a choice of three, Alan and John finally opted to be contrary by choosing ‘Pacific Blue’ for a 0-4-0 saddle tank loco!