June News Part 4

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

Last week the hanging of the exterior doors was mentioned. These doors have continued to progress but are a very time consuming pursuit so many hours are required to get them hinging and fitting correctly. Pleasingly, three doors (two of the compartment doors on the landward side plus an inward opening guards door on the seaward side) are now at the "hung" stage and now await the next stage which will be fitting of the catch/locking mechanisms.

The passenger communication chord project is also advancing. Two internal tubes have been fitted to the guards area which represents the first section of the pipe run which will take the chord down the vehicle.

The exterior equipment featuring the valve which applies the vacuum plus the "butterfly" tell late indicators has now also been properly fitted, on the guards end of the coach.

London North Eastern Railway 1924 Quad Articulated Set 74

This flagship set was posed for official photographs at the start of the week, and very nice they looked too! A few days later they were test run to bed in the new brake blocks and check for other issues. Sadly it was discovered that the flexible rubber vacuum piping was chafing on the bogies at an alarming rate, so some protective sleeves have been produced and fitted to them to get around the irritating design feature. The set is due to debut at the Vintage Transport day on Sunday (1st July), don't miss them!

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

The landward side solebar has been cleaned up and undercoated this week. This brings it up to the same stage as the seaward side which was similarly treated last week.

On the Sheringham end, the last of the original paintwork from the metal not replaced has been heat-gunned off the vehicle to prepare the end for sanding and filling soon.

In preparation for the Sheringham end going back together, all of the small fittings from the corridor are being re-assessed and any that have been left out from previous restoration are being stripped and primed so that we can get everything at the same stage when reassembly is required.

British Railways 1962 Corridor Second M26012

This coach has now moved indoors. The emergency repairs and paint preparation started last week of the bodysides has been rapidly completed allowing repainting to start. Just the two ends remain to be treated.

What the above allowed was painting to commence three days earlier than originally planned. By the weekend the landward side had received a coat of gloss, returning a sort-of-shine to the vehicle.

Maintenance

Recently a spring on one of bogies under Tourist Second Open E4651 started behaving slightly differently than normal. The coach continued in service with the spring being monitored with no ill effects, however there was a strong desire to see what was going on. The coach was therefore quickly been transferred to the workshop for attention.

The easiest way to tackle the issue was to swap the suspect spring with a spare, which was done quickly. The coach can now be returned to traffic whilst the suspect spring is examined at our leisure...

Workshop

Other workshop projects also thrive. The Axeman's project to create meshed storage crates is progressing well with example number 5 almost at the completed stage.

A bike from Weybourne station also seems to have sneaked in for repainting and attention to make it look a little perkier.