Saturday 5 August. For those that turned up at Castlecroft in the morning to sign on, there was a nice surprise waiting for the restoration team: A Paxman 16YHXL sitting in the yard sheeted over. This is the power unit from Glasgow that was announced we had found and would be purchasing sometime back. It arrived at the ELR on Tuesday 1st of August, but those that knew about this happening decided to keep it quiet to see the look on the teams faces when they saw it! Needless to say I and others was called names which cant be published for keeping it a secret! A big big thanks goes out to Carl Holt, who in the main has found ,signed, sealed and delivered this power unit for the society, its through Carl's hard work that the society is in the great position of having a low engine hours power unit for D8233 and a power unit's worth of spares for it.

After a little nosey at the power unit, the day started with the construction of our fashioned in house Shot blast tent, this has been constructed from a Gazebo with side and floor panels cut from the old tarp that used to cover D8233, and clipped into position. This facility means we can now shot blast parts that have come off the loco to address corrosion etc and still contain the shot for re-use and also not make to big a mess on the site. First item in was the right cooler group side. Upon shot blasting a fair few holes appeared where the metal worm had a good nibble! Next job on this will be to cut the affected parts out and weld in new metal.

Meanwhile on D8233 itself, a team set about removing the right exhauster box ready for going off site for welding work, while another team set about removing the small roof section above the water header tank and making the main roof section ready for lifting off. When the exhauster box removal team had completed their mission, they then set about cutting out and removing sections of skin on the framework around the cooler group area, which has been pushed out with rust behind it. There is one or two more areas that need to be cut out, once done, it will all be measured up and new steal ordered then welded in place. In the cooler group, a few areas that were missed and plain forgot about were needle gunned and wirewheeled ready for priming along with the floor.

A great days graft by all and after recent working w/e's being a bit slow on progress it was good to see a big turn out and much progress made, thanks lads!

Sunday 6 August. Bit of a slower start today, think the majority were feeling the affects of the day before, I know I certainly was! The cooler group floor and other missed bits were today primed, ready for undercoat then gloss. Hopefully the next working w/e should see the cooler group completely glossed.

The majority of large parts that have been outside in the weather were moved into the shotblast tent for dry(er) storage, these being items we couldn't physically get through the doors on the coach! The ex Toilet area in the coach was cleared of parts, then all the items that came from the cooler group compartment, moved into here so it is all in one place. Alot of the items were jet washed off ready for shotblasting/needlegunning/wirewheeling then painting.

Another good days work by those present. With the PU on site there's a good vibe going on in the Class 15 camp, everyone is really fired up now, we cant wait to see the PU fire up. Next working w/e is booked for 19th & 20th of August, A fair few of the working members should be present, so hopefully I will see a lot more progress gained over the weekend.

Some photos of the work are below.