June News Part 2

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

This week has seen several lengths of mock gas pipe added to the brake end to "feed" the lamps. Although representing gas pipe, they are actually old copper water pipes suitably re-purposed. In addition to that, the pipes themselves are having electrical wires passed through them for the low voltage circuits that will eventually power the LED tail lamps on the vehicle ends that are inside the "gas" lamps. So there you have it, water pipes dressed as gas pipes becoming electrical conduit!

Inside the vehicle, there are two recent fittings to speak of. The first is the draught excluders (mentioned in previous updates) which have had a trial fit - they will be put on properly once the doors and locks have been fitted to the body.

The second fitting is one of the two picture frames which adorn the outer ends of the passenger compartments. Each one will have three pictures, presumably in suitable GER style, although Monkey may have to see if he can sneak in a PG Tips advert in there!

London North Eastern Railway 1924 Quad Articulated Set 74

Several volunteers have started to return to their normal duties, as we come towards the end of the Quad-Art refurbishment. Those who wield varnish brushes have remained busy however and this week has been "varnish week". The whole set was washed down in stages to reduce the dust levels following rubbing down, after which the varnish could progress throughout the week.

This is the fastest time they have ever been re-varnished with all four coaches being completed within five days, including the hard to access inner ends which have not been varnished since the set was restored (as separate coaches) at Carnforth ten years ago.

A start has now been made on cleaning the windows, one of the finishing touches, and the Sheringham end coach has been cleaned so far.

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

A week of rapid progress with the metalwork on the Holt end. A good run on framework  replacement has meant the repairs to the landward side are now completed. These included a new cantrail (goes at the top behind the gutter) and replacement of the bottom 6 inches of the roof hoops which had rotted away in this particular area. A good start has now been made on attaching new steel panels to the exterior of the toilet area, with several new pieces cut roughly to size and temporarily positioned.

At the Sheringham end vestibule, reconstruction work has restarted now that the metalworks have been complete for some time. The floor was found to be much more rotten than originally feared so has had to be removed. New timber for its replacement has been ordered and the corroded metalwork below cleaned up and repainted ready.

British Railways 1962 Corridor Second M26012

One of the coaches planned to replace the Quad Arts in the workshops is M26012, an ailing summer-only coach which had reached the "embarrassing" category due to its external patch painted appearance. Corrosion is rather rampant, and whilst the coach was soldiering on admirably from a structural point of view, the surface rust patches and falling out body filler meant that it simply was no longer presentable to the paying public, so something has to be done. We were able to get hold of the coach a little early and get it outside the shed so that some work could be done on it before the Quad Arts vacate and this one goes inside.

Regular readers will be aware of our Bronze/Silver/Gold level of Mark 1 overhauls. M26012 has been squeezed in amongst other priorities, however for this reason we simply do not have the time or resources to give it even a bronze overhaul. Therefore in jest we have invented the unofficial class of "Chocolate Overhaul", a below-Bronze scope of works which basically involves removal of any loose material and a super quick patch up followed by a single coat of paint to make it all one colour again so it can make it through the next season or two on occasional use. The coach will of course be a candidate for more thorough works in the future, when resources allow it to come in. Before people get too upset reading this, hold any judgement for a few weeks and see how different it looks once we are finished - and also bear in mind that the only alternative was to leave the coach in service in its current weather-beaten state!

M26012 has had two days of chipping away at the bottom edge "skirt", a sort of BR patch which was riveted along the coach's entire length. This was coming away in several places and the original sealant had failed, so it is being tidied up, resealed, re-riveted and repainted. The lower skirt was a big part of what was letting the coach down so it looks better already...

We are concentrating on the bottom skirt first whilst it is outside, as when the Quads leave us M26012 will go in the staging area, and working on the bottom edge in the staging would be an uncomfortable hands-and-knees affair.

It is anticipated that M26012 will only be with us for around three weeks, following which it will be returned to Sheringham and monitored. Depending on how well it fares, we may consider doing more "Chocolate Overhauls" where it is appropriate to try and prevent the external appearance of our main running coaches getting out of control, during the current period we find ourselves in where we are catching up on overhauls that were postponed whilst we undertook the Suburban 4 project.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Motor Brake Second M51192

No sooner was this railcar moved right outside the shed (see last week) it was whisked away to Holt to make room for the visiting engines as part of this weekend's Mixed Traffic Gala. Obviously therefore, work to install the seating is now suspended until it returns to Weybourne.

Maintenance

The replacement windows prepared for M4958 (see last week) were fitted as planned this week, so the vehicle now has a fully working set of sliding windows again.