Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853
The handbrake mentioned last week has been further tested and found to require a slight modification to increase the gearing on which the wheel acts upon the brakes themselves. The team have got straight onto it, introducing a further lever in to the system.
As ever, the Axeman assisted but do not fear, the handbrake will be exhaustively tested now that we know he's been involved!
Elsewhere on the underframe, more buffer shanks have been fitted, with the Sheringham end now complete. Specialist oval holes are being drilled into the frame at the Holt end so that the London North Eastern shanks can fit into the Great Eastern apertures.
Body repairs continue on an ongoing basis.
The Royal Norfolk Regiment
The third nameplate from recently dedicated WD steam loco 90775 is being mounted on a commemorative board which will also carry information and images about the dedication ceremony and the engine.
British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224
Not the highest prioritised vehicle this week, nonetheless the roof scraping work has continued with the centre section of the roof chipped clean for about 1/3rd of its length. This is by far the hardest section of the roof to scrape as it contains all of the awkward crevices such as the toilet filler pipes and roof vents.
British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843
Another good week's progress with this vehicle seeing the most attention. The window frames which have been removed from the coach have had their hidden edges protected with several layers of paint to try and separate the steel body reacting with the aluminium frames. These are now resting and await refitting to the coach.
The light refurbishment of the six doors continues. They have all received a first coat of brown paint on the insides, and the wooden "door cards" are now being varnished up.
Body filling and paint preparation has turned to the landward side, now that the seaward side is finished. This is progressing nicely from the Holt end towards the centre of the vehicle.
The biggest visual transformation has however been the rapid progress on the Sheringham half of the landward side. We decided this needed re-panelling as the distortion and filler was just too great on this section.
In just one week all of the old panelling has been removed and the framework below all repaired where required. We were lucky in that the framework was in overall good condition.
With the framework all painted, a start has already been made on the new steel panelling. It has gone so well so far we almost wished we'd re-panelled the whole side now!
British Railways 1960 Covered Carriage Truck E94464
The end doors mentioned last week have progressed. The first two (there are eight in all) have been rebuilt and the wooden framework reassembled and painted in primer. They will receive further coats of paint when more of the doors have reached the same stage.
Sadly, unlike M4843's framework, these doors have been much, much worse than they originally looked. Several have even fallen apart just being handled! It would seem heavy replacement of woodwork and a lot of time consuming joinery repair work is the only solution! The bins have gotten significant fuller since we started repairing these doors! The steel hinged straps that hold the doors on have also made it into undercoat.
Work on sanding the interior walls of the vehicle ready for repainting has also continued steadily.
Maintenance
We reported on overhauled steam heating valves last week but there was no image. They look so good that we have included an image this week, at the request of the " man behind the magic" who was quite rightly disappointed that his fine work was not illustrated!
The maintenance works continue to be heavy again this week. Aside from the usual carriage faults such as changing seats etc, there has been interesting lighting faults to attend to this week on the suburban set (lights do not switch on and off using the normal buttons) and the sleeping coach at Sheringham, whose corridor lights seem to be dropping like flies. Being a sleeping car, this is one vehicle where the internal lighting is actually used!
Lastly, but by no means least, four new brackets have been produced which will attach to our lifting jacks and allow them to "reach" further and lift vehicles more effectively that have previously been very awkward to lift as the limited reach jacks had to be positioned in certain places on the underframes, which was not conducive for the work being done on them. Inspection has of course been made and its a Yes from Monkey!
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