Another warm day on site with long spells of sunshine, the sort that makes everything look cheerful even if the afternoon did turn a bit close and humid. A strong turnout meant the new car park finally had a proper capacity test, which it handled rather well. With it being a Mills Public Open weekend, service trains ran on both days and plenty of passengers came through, keeping the place lively from the start.
The morning began with a training run to give one of the newer hands some driving experience, and later in the day came a well‑earned milestone as another member of the team passed both guard and driver practical tests. Only the theory papers remain before he can officially join the ranks of the slightly unhinged.
Work across the site was steady and varied. The attempt to fix timber battens for lighting fittings inside the container proved more entertaining than expected: the roof is so bowed that the adhesive simply refused to grip. After a few experiments and some muttering, the plan shifted to mounting the battens high on one of the side walls, which at least has the decency to be straight.
Progress continued on the Dough wagon, with repairs and filler work on the north‑end push bar before the whole wagon was lifted so the wheelsets could be dropped out and taken into 83A for shimming to gauge. Over at shed 83D, the infill on the north elevation—where the wall steps back over the doors—took shape through the day, a job that needed several pairs of hands and a bit of improvisation. In the workshop, new metal shims for the Dough wagon wheelsets were fabricated, adding another tick to the long list of behind‑the‑scenes tasks that keep everything moving.
> View - All Entries in May 2026 | Most Recent Entries | All Diary Entries