Getting ready for Running Day 2016

Its always frantic before running day as we like to try and get out the best of the fleet to offer lots of variety and provide something for everyone. Of course to get things ready takes a lot of planning and some things being worked on off site are beyond our control. One such vehicle this year is the Cub, which suffered a major engine failure on its way to the London Live event back in the summer. The engine has been out and being worked on for some time now but whether its back in time remains to be seen and we can only hope and cross our fingers...

 Another vehicle we wanted to get out this year was RTL1014 so in readiness it was inspected mechanically as well as the body. The mechanical side was good but sadly the offside of the body work is not safe and the extent of the work is to great for us to complete in the timescales we have as can be seen from these images.

 As with any such job you end up having to chase the rot forwards to find somewhere that's still solid before you can repair and clearly next pillar isn't! As you can see the horizontal strengthener has completely rotted away and thus ever more strain is put on the pillar and other strengtheners which will lead to other collapses, hence the fact the vehicle was condemned from the operational fleet until extensive restoration can be carried out. On the plus side this means 1014 will get some proper attention in the new year.

 

 But then onto more positive news... Of course to get new things out for running day takes a lot of planning as any major restoration takes years to complete and needs to be within sight of the finishing line in the summer so that resources can be scheduled to get things ready that can be finished in time and not 'wasted' on projects that realistically cant be done. Now I know lots of people like surprises so I wont show pictures of the full bus or indeed the spectacular interior but as a taster the image above gives you a feel. The only other time this vehicle featured on this blog was when we collected it in my December 2013 post... Its changed a lot since then...

 And then back to my last post about the livery on the Jersey vehicle and the quest of finding the line out colours and original green Jersey wore on their early 30s livery. Well the image above shows the one piece of line out we found of the cream. To be honest its all we needed as it gave us the colour (some thought it may be gold) the width and the exact placement. The image below gives a sneak preview but again I won't ruin it for running day but will add the caveat that she almost certainly wont make it into service for running day as per the Cub she is waiting for external contractor to finish some engine work, but if everything else goes according to plan we hope to have her visible as a static.

Other defects this month include 2588s B frame, 1513 fuel pump, RT8 steering box, all of which are now getting attention.

To those of you coming down for the Running Day look forward to seeing you on December 3, where not only the vehicles covered in this post will appear but also some guest vehicles and one of our own that has recently changed colour....