We are sorry to have to start this blog with the news that long-time member, Bill Ashcroft, died last Thursday morning at the age of 82. We understand that Bill had just completed a course of chemotherapy the previous day following a diagnosis of lung cancer at the beginning of the year. He was certainly one of life’s characters and was involved at Haverthwaite in the early days, although an inability to drive through a medical condition resulted in a scaling down of his involvement. Bill then joined the support crew for the late Paddy Smith’s LMS liveried Black Five No. 5407 before transferring to the “dark side” of bus preservation, acquiring John Fishwick & Sons’ Leyland half cab double decker No. 10 which he restored. He latterly became involved with the restoration of a Leyland Lion. Bill took many railway photographs which recorded the end of steam and have been sort after by railway periodicals. He recalled to us how, when working at County Hall at Preston, he would nip off to the toilets, which held a prime viewing position overlooking the entrance to Preston station, in order to take photographs of passing steam traffic. More recently, Bill started to make frequent appearances at the FRT’s new shed at Preston and we will miss his cheerful voice recalling old times. Our condolences go to Bill’s wife, Ruth, and his family.
Work has continued at Preston this last week, although there was a pause in operations on Wednesday in order to observe sand blasting demonstration which had been arranged with a view to the RSR and FRT joining forces to buy some new equipment. 
The onlookers can be seen here along with a photo of the sand blaster attacking the frames of Wootton Hall‘s tender. The demo showed that the compressor would need some attention before it could be used for sand blasting.
John has been busy re-fitting items on the RMB and can be seen here preparing one of the lighting cable pattresses. Mike has been back working in the toilets and Tim has varnished the east corridor end of the coach.
Alan and John H, seen here contemplating their next move, have been working on Caliban‘s running board and Adrian has removed some further scale and rust from the frames. Keith and David have been filling the scrap metal skip with scrap tubes and components from Wootton Hall.
George reports that work is proceeding at Shackerstone on Cumbria‘s big ends and a new clack valve. The loco should be back in traffic the weekend after Easter, subject to a satisfactory steam test.
Our folk band Live Steam had a busy Saturday evening at a private 70th birthday party at Out Rawcliffe village hall, which seemed to be successful. 
Tim reprised his tuition of the zob stick to an unsuspecting female from the audience.
Last call here for the final Preston Branch meeting of this season which will take place at 8 pm tomorrow, Tuesday evening, 11th April, at The Ale Emporium, Preston. Archive steam video will be screened.
With Mike and Paul away on holiday it was left to John and Tim to continue with the work on the RMB. John discovered that, when lettering the west end of the RMB, Tim hadn’t left much room for the re-installation of the vacuum pipe that connects to the communication cord valve. That meant either re-lettering the end of the RMB or John making some adjustments to the pipe which, as a true gentleman, he did! Phew! 
John also removed and repaired one of the toilet heater coils, which he is seen here inspecting. Meanwhile, at the other end of the RMB, Tim undercoated and then gloss coated the east end. Lettering and varnishing are still required when there is a break in the dust.
The new piece of running board, having received two coats of primer and undercoat underneath, was mounted on top of the frames. Alan then went on to remove another piece of plate.
Fred cleaned up Wootton Hall‘s vacuum reservoir whilst Roger primed Caliban‘s wheels.
The RSR’s Steam Gala over last weekend was well patronised and saw the guest appearance of Peckett 0-4-0ST No. 1163 Whitehead from the Midland Railway Centre. Keith, Alan and Tim were in action on the locomotives, whilst Alison made some useful money with the sales stand and young Matthew provided some useful assistance to the Family Focus Group in the museum.
It was a quieter day at Preston on Wednesday with Alan braving the snow to go to Shildon once the snow gates on the A66 had been lifted. Tim was also away which left John working away sanding gangway metalwork at the east end of the RMB whilst Mike continued the reassembly of the toilets. 
David has now finished the assembly of the new shelving in the first class North London Railway coach body and he and Tim spent some time on Saturday stacking paint cans and other C&W consumables from the interior of the RMB.
However, Adrian broke the silence in the shed with the needlegun around Caliban‘s valve chest. 
Howard is still busy with Caliban‘s new lubrication boxes, making stands for them, and happy that his precious knife and fork survived the fall of the North London Carriage door on his tool box last week, which didn’t fare as well.
Keith has been removing more platework and also the vacuum reservoir from Wootton Hall in readiness for Fred and Roger to clean and apply primer paint. 
Last week’s output from Fred is seen here.
Alan is seen here on the footplate on Thursday whilst Tim is seen acting as guard with Martin Clark on Friday whilst Anthony Coulls is assessed.
The Ribble Steam Railway’s Diesel gala took place over last Saturday and Sunday and the photo of visiting Colas locomotive 60047 shows it outside the RSR running shed during the driver’s lunch break on Saturday. This next weekend will see the RSR’s Steam Gala with four engines in steam, which will keep Keith, Alan and Tim busy.
The seemingly never ending work on the RMB continued again this week. John has just about finished his endeavours at the east end of the coach and it is seen here ready for the final coats of paint – the view rather belies the amount of work that John has put in to bring the metalwork back up to standard. John is aiming to get around to the west end next week in order to re-instate the passenger operated brake mechanism, otherwise known as the communication cord. This will enable the panelling on the south side toilet to be completed after the communication cord has been permanently re-attached to the frame of the coach. 
Mike Rigg has been busy completing the re-installation of fittings in the north side toilet and can be seen here contemplating his next move. 
Paul is seen cleaning the door ready for fitting.
With a need to start emptying the RMB, which has acted as a store in recent years, David has been erecting the shelving, kindly donated by Michael Cook, in the first class North London Railway coach body. It is seen here in partially constructed condition. David has now finished the job and some of the equipment has already been moved over. However, at Adrian’s suggestion, David took it upon himself to clean the windows of our new store so that we can see our way around only to find that most of the muck removed was Adrian’s dust! Just need now to replace the exterior door which fell off on Saturday..
Alan is seen here with paint brush in hand putting red oxide on what will be the underside of the new piece of Caliban‘s running board after having received tips of the trade on painting from none other than Adrian! Some grey undercoat was subsequently applied on Friday by the C&W team.
Keith has also removed some of the engine’s platework adjacent to the front bufferbeam so that it can be cleaned up and painted. 
Fred took on the challenge of wire brushing the plate on Friday and can be seen at work here.
Road four in the unheated area of the new shed received ballast up to the top of the sleepers, as can be seen in this photo where Keith is watching Phil Preston operate the hydraulic grab on the RSR TRAM. The day when we will be concreting (or the ‘C’ word as John termed it last week) again draws ever closer.
Mike Rigg has almost completed the re-installation of panelling in the first of the RMB toilets. A clear out of the vast amount of paraphernalia in the RMB – some useful and some for the skip – has started and David Rimmer is clearing a space in the first class North London Railway coach body to accommodate the useful items. Michael Cook kindly donated some shelving a little while ago and it is planned to erect this in the coming week or so.
In addition, Paul Newton is breathing new life into the old RSR paint cupboard in readiness to receive the paint cans that are currently stored in the RMB.
Keith has also been busy with the new water collection chamber which will eventually be fastened under the new tender tank for Wootton Hall, when commissioned. As can be seen from the photo, it is now getting to the paint stage.
Mike and Tim finished cleaning the windows on the RMB last Wednesday and Mike and Paul are seen here making a start on cleaning up the brass handles ready for fitting. 
Paul has also been filing the new letter B for the gas compartment cover. 
The temporary absence of Tom and Trevor has been felt in that it is now time to re-assemble the internal panelling and Mike started the work by cleaning down the various components in the south side toilet – not a job to be relished. He is seen here re-installing a pelmet for one of the saloon compartment doors.
Alan continued to drill holes in the new piece of running board. We refrained from including yet more photos of Fred and Roger at work on Caliban‘s wheels although it can be reported that they have recently changed sides!
The newly acquired lubrication valves for Wootton Hall have now been fitted in position on the smokebox. This view of the right hand side shows the sole regulator lubrication valve above one of the two cylinder lubrication valves -the other being fitted to the left hand side of the smokebox.
Both Wednesday and Friday saw efforts made to bring the RMB’s windows up to serviceable standard, with Tim, Mike (see above) and Paul brandishing scrapers and cleaning rags to get rid of paint and ingrained dirt.
… and the finished welded job:
So So plenty of work for Tim next Wednesday with the filler and sander to remove all traces of the repair.
Paul and Mike have had a second attempt at creating a plaster of Paris mould for the plate to go on the new gas compartment door on the RMB. This time they were successful, and the next job is to use some casting resin to create the plate itself. Meanwhile, Paul has been creating a new letter ‘B’ to go on the door, and is seen here removing some of the waste metal with the aid of a pillar drill:
Howard has been making progress with one of the new lubrication boxes, with the machined casting seen here.
Fred and Roger have again been hard at work on the wheels – this week’s photos look very much like last week’s – did they ever go home? 
Alan, incidentally, brought in birthday cakes for everyone on Wednesday, and some of the gang can be seen seated around the table enjoying the results of Alison’s baking.
Keith continues to gather together components for Wootton Hall, including the new cylinder lubrication valves seen here. Meanwhile George has again been working on the old tubes.
With the RMB successfully varnished last Monday, work on the east corridor end has resumed in earnest with John tackling the repairs on the north east corner and Tim applying filler and sander to the south west corner. Most of the door frames are now painted and protective masking tape has been removed from door handles ready for them to be polished. Now that the surrounding paint has had chance to harden, work on cleaning the windows, both inside and outside, is expected to commence in earnest this next week.
Howard has been preparing newly cast brass lubrication pots for use on Caliban. 
The dust curfew in the shed had to be unexpectedly maintained on Wednesday as Adrian had plans to paint the inside of Caliban‘s frames under the cab. An inspection on Friday revealed that Adrian had managed to put a liberal amount on the shed and pit floors and also the one of the pit boards! 
Fred broke the dust curfew on Friday, cleaning up Caliban‘s wheels, whilst Roger continued his painstaking task of chipping paint from the wheel spokes.
All went well over the weekend and Alison made some useful sales income as well as receiving some donated items from the Friends of the NRM’s north east branch – well done, and thanks also to the Friends!
The trackwork out the shed has now been pronounced “complete”, with everything in place and ballasted. Again, well done to all concerned for completing this within a relatively short timescale and in some pretty cold weather at times.
The lack of dust from other projects in the shed whilst the RMB has been painted has been very much appreciated, but normal services can be resumed from Wednesday. 
John has again been busy completing repairs to the bodywork and floor at the east end of the coach, and the paintwork here will be undertaken once the work has finished. 
Paul appeared on Friday and is seen here painting the side of one of the bogies in gloss black. It has to be reported, though, that the project to create a new plate for the side of the gas storage door suffered a setback for, when Paul removed the plaster of Paris mould, it was found that some of the lettering was unclear – perhaps the mould had been left in place for too long. Another attempt will be made when some proper release agent has been acquired.
Work has continued apace on Caliban, with Adrian using the dust curfew to paint the frames with a fetching shade of pink undercoat. Likewise, Fred and Roger have been sorting out components in a dust free manner, and Alan has been drilling holes in a new section of running board.
Looking forward to next weekend, Furness Railway No. 20 is back in steam at Locomotion, Shildon, and Alan and Sam (seen here under FR 20) paid a flying visit there on Friday to prepare the loco with the assistance of Brian Goodfellow. He will no doubt be glad to see that the weather for the end of the week is forecast to warm up a little.
More paint has been added to the sides of the RMB this week as work has moved on to applying a gloss finish. A final coat of varnish will be added by John and Tim, hopefully next Monday.
Mike and Paul, meanwhile, have been working on creating a sign for the RMB’s new gas door cover. This has involved delving back into likes of old Blue Peter annuals to re-discover the joys of using plaster of Paris to create a mould from the other door cover from which a new sign can be cast. We see here Paul preparing the existing sign with a release agent. News of success or failure on this particular project will be brought to you in future blogs!
With a temporary dust ban in place in the shed this week, we were again spared the noise of the needle gun as Adrian resorted to using a paint brush instead. Alan and John were engaged in the dust-free project of assembling a new parts washer, which has been kindly donated to the FRT along with a supply of paraffin. This should make the cleaning of greasy/oily components much easier in the future. Fred and Roger appeared on Friday and also managed to find dust-free jobs on which to be engaged in progressing Caliban‘s overhaul.