September News Part 2

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

The biggest achievement this week was the complicated task of constructing an effective door lock catch plate (located on the vehicle itself in the doorway as opposed to on the door), which was successfully created on the Sheringham end landward side passenger door. This was the trial version and now a method has been established it is expected more can be done for the other three passenger doors more quickly (no pressure!). Sadly I forgot to take a photograph of the item in question!

Other work on the vehicle has been limited to some further rubbing down of the exterior ready for more painting when the time comes, and the fitting of a cover plate over the luggage door mechanism - as this will be a wheelchair accessible area it was felt the open mechanism would be better boxed in to avoid any chances of finger injury!

In other news, my statement last week that I suspected that 853 didn't originally have doors that clicked shut themselves when a passenger slams them was wrong - I am informed that this vehicle was fitted with such luxuries from new. So there we are, we are simply reinstating what should indeed be there!

London North Eastern Railway 1937 Restaurant Buffet E9128E

The Di-bond sheeting for the lower panels is now in production and is scheduled to be delivered late next week. Speaking of deliveries, the new timber for the half-round beading has now been delivered, ready for machining to size/length to go over the edges of the Di-bond once fitted.

Outside, the first rows of securing tacks for the Di-bond has been fitted, to the landward side. The sheets will be tacked as we have been warned the lengths we are using will expand and contract quite a bit, so they will be clamped in position rather than being fixed too rigidly. Also outside has been the completion of the underframe/bogie  repainting, it now looks much fresher with a top up coat of black gloss.

The cantrail strips mentioned last week have now all been machined to size from quality teak.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224

Boring as it sounds, the big push to scrape down the underframe has been the main priority this week, with the same poor faces putting in many more days of work to complete this task. The good news is, this mission is now complete, including the bufferbeams at the end, so it will not be long before we can get the paint out to protect what we have spent so long preparing! This work will give the underframe another 50 years so well done to all involved with this truly thankless job...

Related to the underframe are the battery box covers, which have now made it into black gloss and look really fresh. More experimentation has been done to the air brake pipework, which is being moved to accommodate a new steam heat pipe in the future. This is being done by a mixture of cutting and bending so the two systems can co-exist through some tight points along the underframe.

Inside the carriage, the same volunteer who progressed the luggage compartment bulkhead has moved into the guards area itself, with two out of three walls sanded, filled and primed in just one week. This work has been interesting with the vehicle on jacks, as he has been completing these duties 10 feet above everybody else in the workshop!

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

After what has felt like an age, metalwork repairs to M4843's Holt end has resumed! The rotten crash pillar on the seaward side corner has been cut away and a new one welded in this week.

The Holt end reassembly has also seen some further work, with wooden door jambs being prepared for fitting (there;'s a lot of adjustments etc to do with these) for the two doors at that end.

British Railways 1957 Tourist Second Open E4521

Still no progress, however it was useful as a source of reference when measuring up the routes of vacuum brake and steam heat pipework for E21224!

British Railways 1960 Brush Type 2 D5631

Bodywork is now pretty much concluded so we are fully into the reassembly and paint preparation stages this week. All of the doors are on with the exception of the landward side at the Sheringham, end as this one is proving particularly troublesome. The bodysides and Holt end cabs however are now in an advanced state of prep and it won't be long before the paint brushes are coming out.

British Railways 1962 12 Ton Box Van B784254

The floor has been properly hoovered out this week. Other tasks have included slackening off the bolts and brackets for the vacuum brake cylinder so the latter can be removed for overhaul. The Holt/landward buffer has also been removed and taken inside the shed for investigations as to why it has been leaking oil. At least two other buffers are slowing similar signs so they will all need dealing with in due course.

London Midland Scottish Railway 1947 22 Ton Plate Open 726631

Rapid progress this week on this particular project. Starting with mechanical matters: the defective handbrake was purely down to poor adjustment, after an hour or so's adjustment and testing it now has a very effective handbrake crossing that particular problem off the list. The next task was to deal with the alarming "wobble" which has caused the vehicle to be on the "restricted use" list for so long. This required a little more work, as one of the "W irons" had been bent in an accident many years ago, and despite being partially bend back in the wagon's early days at the NNR, it was found that the W iron was wedging the axlebox of the Sheringham end wheelset in one position, preventing the suspension from working. The solution was to tension the W iron back into parallel with he axlebox by chaining it to the opposite side of the wagon, then gently heating up the four legs of the W iron and then cooling them back down again, to "relax" the metal into its new position.

It stayed there as well once the chains had been removed. Advice for this was sought from our colleagues next door in the engineering works, as this sort of heavy bending is very much "their thing". It worked so well that the owner of B784254 (see above) would like the process repeated on his van which is exhibiting a similar problem...

The swift actions of the W iron benders allowed us to take advantage of a test opportunity. The wagon is needed as a bandstand for next weekend's 1940's event, so we always knew our restoration would be interrupted by this requirement. However the movement of the wagon to Sheringham to fulfill its duties allowed us to check that the W iron was the true cause of the wagon's "wobble" problems. It was carried down on Friday using the visiting Class 14 diesel in a "baby freight train" and very pleasingly when operated at a full 25mph it behaved perfectly for a 4-wheel wagon, meaning that all being well the 15mph restriction will hopefully be able to be lifted once the rest of the restoration is complete.

Before the vehicle left for Sheringham, the outside of the body and the underframes were brushed down of any loose rust and some rust-killing primer applied.

Several hands were involved in this process and they did really well with the whole wagon treated in just two days. When it returns from Sheringham in a few weeks the repainting can progress immediately.