Senior Minion Potter Reporting:
I think we (we being 3417’s Loyal Minions) have mentioned before that this railway preservation lark isn’t all about Glamour, Girls & Riches Beyond The Dreams of Avarice. Some of it is dirty and boring and bloody hard graft. Last Sunday’s work day was a fine example of this point; lot of dirt and heavy lifting punctuated by mild swearing and tea. The work crew consisted of yours truly and Darren and the task was very simple: tidy up the shed.
Of course, before we started work there are certain things that have to be seen to and Depot Operating Procedure Section 4, sub-section 6 was duly dealt with on arrival. For those who don’t know how seriously the SETG take proper operating procedures, please find below the relevant depot operating regulation:
To put it another way, we had a couple of mugs of tea. Railway work without tea is simply inexcusable, we take great pride in adhering closely to best operating practices and we are quite partial to a cuppa. So tea was had. (Milk, No Sugar, Decaffeinated Teabags, since you asked.)
As you’ll all be aware, one of the priorities for 3417 has been getting a float of spares to ensure that the unit is capable of operating into the foreseeable future and a lot of the spending we have done using the Crowdfunding proceeds has been aimed at making sure we have a healthy level of consumables to keep the unit going. This means building shelving, and then loading it with masses of gear – most of it in cardboard boxes labelled UniPart Rail (thanks, folks), all of it covered in dust and either fiddly to carry or heavy or both. We needed to tidy up, and Sunday was the day to do it. I am now in the position to tell you that AWS receivers are a nuisance to stack, MG motor brushes are filthy dirty bloody articles to rack up and suspension springs are better left where they are because they weigh a bloody ton. For a driver such as myself all this dirt and so forth was extremely upsetting so, whilst Darren pointed and laughed at the Motorman with Dirty Hands, I decided to make off for another cup of tea.
By the end of the afternoon (17:30 – it was a proper day of work, especially for just two Minions) we had more or less completed the cleaning. Fresh trim from our friends at TBM Rail had been palleted ready for refitting, the space for our dedicated trim shop had been set out, the spill area had been tidied up, the floor swept, we had finally found Buckie’s Wandering Tea Mug (of the genius Muggus plurus migratorum – it starts in the kitchen and then mysteriously reappears somewhere in the shed after at a fortnight) and the shed was left in a far more business-like state than when we started. All in all, a good and productive day.
We would like to credit the following organisations for their help in this blog post:
UniPart Rail, TBM Rail, Porterbrook Leasing and Yorkshire Tea.