May News Part 1

The update is a few days late this week, as the author has been away all weekend keeping the wheels of preservation tuning...

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

The guards area is really starting to come together from the point of view of the walls, with the filling now completed and the whole saloon, including ceiling, now coated in white undercoat paint, giving it an almost clinical appearance, and quite a contrast from its shabbiness when first started.

Elsewhere on the interior, the seating continues to progress steadily in the two passenger compartments, and the patterns for the new castings required to build the luggage racks are almost complete.

One new project has been a metal case and cosmetic chimney for the central gas tail lamp, for which only the round hole in the centre of the coach survived. A new case has been fabricated, complete with opening door, to be mounted in its rightful place. As with the previous vintage train carriages, a small battery will be fitted in a discrete location to feed electronic representations of the original gas lighting.

British Railways 1962 Mark 1 First Open M3116

A flurry of activity has seen all of the seating refitted into position onto their re-varnished legs. Finishing touches are now being applied and the coach being cleaned after which it should be returned to Sheringham to return to service. Sadly an image is not available showing the new seats but we will endeavor to provide one next update showing the coach ready for service once more.

British Railways 1957 Mark 1 Tourist Second Open E4641

The process described last week of fitting out all of the varnished woodwork onto the walls of the carriage has continued throughout the week, and the coach is starting to transform.

So far, the Holt end saloon (half) of the carriage has been fitted out, which includes brand new varnished panels below the main windows. These have wiring behind them as well which has been fitted at the same time, with provision for table lamps included in the form of a discrete socket. This is the second coach to gain the potential for table lamps, which may form part of the Dining Train at some point in the future.

The next step after the paneling is the seating, which is now starting to be looked at. The huge pile of splintered wood which forms the frames for all of the seat bases have been pulled out and organised to see what needs replacing and what doesn't. The sections and seat legs which are being retained are now being sanded down and repainted.

British Railways 1955 Mark 1 Suburban Composite Lavatory E43041

The woodwork from around the windows continues to progress well, and sections from all of the windows in the whole coach are now stripped and are receiving varnish of some description, with all the different pieces at different stages at present. However they are starting to look very good.

British Railways 1955 Mark 1 Suburban Third Lavatory Open E48001

Interior refitting continues, with the woodwork from around the doors being fitted this week. This includes the draught excluder which was made up by our upholsterers and is "trapped" in the doorway when the large wooden surround is screwed around the door aperture. Underneath the coach, the small steam heat pipes (which link the main end-to-end pipe with each individual heater below the seats) are in the process of being refitted, as well as any blanking plugs required to make the system steam tight.

The Sheringham end bogie has now also been completed, with the brakegear reassembled, greased up and fitted. Any areas which have been damaged since painting have been touched in, so the bogie is ready for refitting.

Bogie work can now solely concentrate on the Holt end example, which this week has had its wheelsets manually stripped of all of detritus that had accumulated on them over the years.

Workshop

Other workshop work this week has included a small repair on one of the windows of the steam fleet to help out our neighbours in the Loco Department. Obviously impressed with the professionalism of our outfit(!) we gained another task in the form of polishing and painting the new nameplates for Black Prince. The former has been completed and the latter is now in the progress, the plates having had a coat of etch primer, which had to be lovingly applied to miss the shiny letters and border.