12 May 2017

May News Part 2

We start by noting that our Mark 1 BSK, W35148, carried none other than Professor Stephen Hawking this week. Those of the department who saw him were rather star struck and we hope he enjoyed his visit to the NNR.

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853


The cleaning and painting of the underframe continues. As the inside of the frames have been fully completed, this week saw the outside (visible) edges tackled. Two thirds of the seaward side has been chipped back to bare metal and primed.


The replacement end plates (introduced last week) have both now been constructed. The second plate required extra holes cutting into it to allow the guards apparatus to pass through the floor (hand brake and vacuum pipes).




The Axeman also added extra holes into the Sheringham end of the underframe. This is because it was a close-fitted coach with dumb buffers originally, but as these are now banned it will need "normal" buffers to run on the NNR. The two new holes will allow the shank of the new buffers to be fitted to the underframe.

Work on the wooden body and the doors continues in a similar fashion to previous weeks. A large piece has now been replaced above the landward set of double (luggage) doors.


British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224


A milestone has been reached as the welding team have now finished all of the framework repairs and re-paneling of the body on the seaward side.


The sanding and varnishing of the various veneered interior panels also continues.

British Railways 1956 Tourist Second Open E4236


All of the six doors have now been refurbished and are rot free and ready for refitting once the doorways have been repaired. Investigative work has now turned to the Sheringham end corridor end. Unfortunately it has been discovered that several safety critical structural end pillars are either weak or severed completely.



This will require the corridor connection to be removed to facilitate the repairs, so the bellow sections and other trimmings are now being removed so that the connection can be craned off next week.


A great deal of time has also been spent on window trim repairs and reconstruction (where rotten) on the half dozen windows which we have removed. This is so they will be ready for refitting and re-glazing when the time comes. Paint stripping of the outsides of the (removed) windows has also been started.

A few weeks ago, it was mentioned that all of the sliding windows had been removed so we could clean them up and get them opening and shutting nice and freely. This week has seen the majority of these windows cleaned up nicely back to aluminium finish, removing the detritus that looks bad and stops them running freely.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Trailer Second Lavatory M56352


Awaiting completion of its corridor connection.

Royal Navy 4 Wheel Flat 269


All of the axlebox oiler pads have been successfully fitted into the axleboxes and bolted up into position. The end vacuum pipe and associated fittings have also been installed at the Holt end. Work will now slow on this vehicle until the underframe of 853 is lifted off the flat wagon, as obviously any required repairs to the wooden deck can't be done whilst there is still a load on top!

Hurst Nelson 1944 Fuel Oil Tanker 5304


This tanker, which runs in the demonstration freight train, had a through vacuum pipe refurbished for it back in February 2015 which has been in store since awaiting fitting. The plan is now to use the Royal Navy wagon as a taxi to move this pipe up to Holt where it can be fitted to the tank wagon. As the pipe had deteriorated whilst it had been outside, it has been cleaned up and repainted.





Workshop


The clearance of our green storage coach is now fully completed and it now awaits removal from the workshop which will hopefully be next week. The mezzanine floor continues to be filled with items from around the current workshop, the pipework fittings being the latest "stuff" to head skywards!

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