January News Part 3

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

Another week of gentle sanding to ready the primed surface for undercoat. A small test section has been undercoated, presumably to judge the colour.

London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866E

A busy week for the Thompson coach. Underframe repainting has continued with about 60% now into gloss. We have taken the opportunity to use up some old paint for this task on the areas that are not seen, in this case green.

A new floor frame is being produced, on top of which the plywood will sit. These consist of rows of cross beams spanning the width of the coach. Again, about 60% of the passenger saloon has now been kitted out.

Staying with wood, the window surrounds for the new oval windows are now being installed and are almost complete.

The ceilings supports for the extended passenger saloon ceiling, started last week, have now also been fitted into place.

Pictured last week was the tube in the chassis for a toilet waste pipe to fit through. The plastic components for the pipe arrived this week and have been test fitted and then removed again. Finally, two supporting steel plates, known as slippers, have been returned into the axleboxes at one end, as the coach arrived with bits of wood rammed in their place, which would have been no good for service.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224

Our four wheelsets are now all turned to correct profile, with the final member being finished this week. They are now lined up as a set of four and once the fourth one is painted, will be ready for fitting into the bogies.

The floor repairs continue, with the woodwork side of things being attended to this week. All of the supporting beams and replacement wooden floors have now all been repaired or replaced where required and painted into black gloss.

They now await refitting which can be done once the final replacement steel floor supports is welded into place.

Metalwork is now progressing again along the landward side. Three out of the five compartments now have the framework around the windows repaired as required, with several sections of new material being added.

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

No progress to report.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Motor Brake Second M51188

Welding and bodywork preparation has continued rapidly, with the cab end now completed and ready for painting. The new route indicator box has also had a test fit below the centre window.

The seaward side is now the focus of attention, with welding repairs being completed this week. This was done in just a few days as this side was in much better condition than the landward side was. Both passenger doors did require some attention, where they normally corrode towards the bottom. Filling and sanding is now well underway on this side, with only the guards area at the back of the vehicle now left to tackle.

At the rear of the vehicle, the corridor connection mentioned last week has seen further work, and the scissor mechanisms on the outside are now completed into gloss black.

A small cosmetic repair is being progressed in two places on the interior of the vehicle, where water damage has caused the ceiling paint to flake. We are carefully chipping away the loose and doing an intermediate repair of sealing the wood before patch painting the areas affected. The rest of the ceilings remain in good condition.

Maintenance

All of the vehicles listed last week that were at Weybourne for Ultrasonic Axle Testing successfully passed their inspections, meaning that the coaches registered for Cromer have not suffered any fractures in the past two years. We also now have another three vehicles which are proven to have wheelsets suitable for running to Cromer should we want to register them in the next two years. The important one amongst them is BCK 21224 in the workshop, as this coach is intended to join the Cromer fleet in 2020, all being well!

January News Part 2

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

More sanding and filling this week to the Holt end and seaward side. It can't be long now before the undercoat paint comes out! Further varnishing and painting of ancillary components has been done, including the picture frames for the walls, and the compartment interiors have been cleaned as they were getting bad!

London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866E

Progress has been made on several fronts. More scraping and brass polishing work has been undertaken on the two sets of sliding windows that were removed last week, to return them to their original shine.

On the coach itself, the floor has been completely removed revealing the framework below.

This has allowed a quick scrape down of the underframe and rust kill paint has also been applied this week. Notice how the rough surface of the metal has reduced the brush to mop-like status!

Part of the underframe trussing has been cut out and replaced by a rather thick tube. This has now been welded up by our friends in the engineering depart (required as it is structural) and will allow for a soil pipe to be fitted in the future if it is required. This has been done on a "just in case" basis as the restoration team don't want to have to heavily modify the coach in the future if dropping waste onto the track gets banned.

Moving upwards, into the ceiling, some extra support beams are being fitted into the roof space beyond the end of the original passenger area up to the guards compartment. This is because in its new life the passenger area will be slightly larger than original to encompass the first set of double doors, to allow disabled access. We therefore need the curved ceiling to extend further than it did originally, hence the extra supporting woodwork.

More woodwork has come in the form of some new hoops to support the surrounds for the extra windows which are going to be cut into the sides, and work to introduce extra passenger communication chain points is also being done.

Inside the upholstery workshop, a test seat for the Thompson has been reupholstered in the proposed new material to asses its suitability before ordering the bulk of the material. Pictured is an original next to the new blue look.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224

The wheelset heavily pictured last week has now been painted in rust-kill primer and moved into the wheel lathe to be turned down to profile. This is now mid way through being completed.

The areas of underframe which were not able to be painted from underneath, but which were revealed after the flooring was all removed for the welding repairs, have now been painted with primer, undercoat and gloss black to protect them for the next 50 years. This will all be covered up once the new flooring is back in!

With the battery box interiors painted the covers have now been refitted to keep the dirt out.

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

No progress to report.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Motor Brake Second M51188

Welding and bodywork preparation is now complete on the landward side. The cab end is the next section to tackle, with lots of pin holes, fibreglass and expanding foam being discovered underneath!

Cleaning and repainting of the corridor connection area has been able to be progressed this week. The end sliding door has been rubbed down and repainted into gloss black, whilst the scissor mechanisms on the outside of the corridor connection have been cleaned, primed and undercoated.

Maintenance

All of the coaches required for Ultrasonic Axle Testing (UAT) are now at Weybourne for testing next week. These include RBR 1969, FO 3116, SO 4372, TSO 4641, BCK's 21103/21224 & BG 81033. This includes the currently registered Cromer fleet, plus any coaches that we may choose to register in the next two years. Note that the choice to UAT a coach does not necessarily make it a mainline/Cromer coach!

January News Part 1

A Happy New Year to all readers! Let us hope 2019 is a fruitful one for coach restoration around the land. Early January is always a bit slow to pick up, with some paid staff on extended holidays and less volunteers coming in due to the extended duties that home life can present at this time of year. However we are slowly getting back into the swing of things...

Great Eastern Railway 1899 4 Wheel Brake Third 853

All being well, 2019 should be the year 853's rebuild reaches its conclusion. With that in mind, we are dangerously close to the "big push" to see it finished. Further sanding and filling is being progressed on the Holt end and seaward sides (the other two sides are now complete) with more applications of pink primer in between. The team are now working towards glazing the vehicle which will then in turn allow the exterior to receive final painting. To this end the door droplight frames have been focused on recently with machining of slots which will receive the glass. The frames are now built up and have been stained on one side and primed on the other. They are to be varnished internally and painted externally, giving them a duel personality.

On the interior, the main lighting is now completed in the guards van and disabled space. This has involved wiring up the fake gas lighting with a grain-of-wheat bulb housed inside a cut-off test tube to represent the pilot light....

....and an LED downlight mounted in the ceiling to represent the main light.

They are hard to photograph in action but they do look good. The assembly is finished with a bowl clamped to the ceiling with a decorative cast ring.

London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866E

More supporting woodwork has been fitted to the vehicle's sides, this time at ankle height to support the new steam heating elements which are to run down the two sides. A good start has also been made on removing the sliding lights out of the top of the windows, for dismantling and cleaning back to polished brass, as they are currently over-painted brown. Whilst these are out, one will also be used as an aid to casting two more windows worth, as the corridor side (in the coach's original configuration) only had two of the four side windows with opening sections. Having all eight present will be more appropriate for an open saloon configuration. Work to install a hot water tank for one of the taps is also ongoing, salvaged from one of the Mark 1 coaches which no longer has toilets fitted.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224

We now have a full set of four wheelsets for the vehicle, with a big day out to the East Lancs Railway to pick up the axle that we needed. They have our thanks for sparing us this wheelset which is crucial to allowing E21224 to operate on Network Rail metals.

In common with our wheels here, this spare one has also been stored outside, long enough for some natural foliage to take residence. Being Northern himself, Monkey was immediately impressed with the "good honest moss" and has opened a new visitor attraction for 2019:

Sadly the horticultural masterpiece was soon disturbed as less than a day after arriving the wheelset had its bearing housings removed to inspect the roller bearings and the surplus V belt pully was also removed as it is not suitable for a Mark 1.

The axle is now ready for tyre turning into profile.

Work on the bodyside and floor welding on the landward side has ceased briefly as our welder has been away for the birth of his first child. A big congratulations from all of us in the workshop as we wish the new family all the best!

A small job completed has been the repainting of the battery box interiors, which will allow the fitting of new batteries in due course.

British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843

The landward side door, pictured last update, has had its weather strip and grab handle fitted and adjusted which completed the door work at that end of the vehicle.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Motor Brake Second M51188

Bodyside repairs continue on the landward side of the vehicle. The entire side is now rubbed down and welding repairs to window edges and associated bodyfilling and sanding has been creeping from the rear of the vehicle towards the front. This is all now at a very advanced stage and I can't see it being long before we move onto the front end and the seaward side.

The biggest single task to get the landward side up to scratch has been a large repair to the driver's door, which was the worst on the vehicle. It had blown out of shape due to severe rot in the bottom of the door and close to the handle at waist level. It was also distorted to the extent it was getting stuck and was hard to open/shut. By chopping off the bottom of the steel door skin, we were able to replace the bottom of the door frame and reassemble without fully taking the door apart into its component parts.

Both steel skin and wooden frame are now new at the bottom. With remarkable speed, body expert Phil has undertake all the repairs and rehung the door which now opens and shuts seamlessly. Even better, there are now no jagged holes in it either! The completion of this door has meant the entire landward side is now almost ready for repainting.

Cleaning of the exhaust silencers has continued and these have now been repainted ready for refitting. This will occur after painting as they will get in the way if we fit them now.

The route indicator box for the front has now been built from steel and any imperfections filled.

Measurements have been taken for the glass and the box has now been primed in preparation for the glass being fitted,. Some wooden frames are also being produced to hold the glass in place.

The inward opening guards door on the seaward side has now been reassembled with a replacement window after the original was found to be badly scored. All of the internal planking is now back in place and the window operates much more smoothly.

Maintenance

RBR E1969, from the dining train, has been back in detention again as its generator failed over the Christmas period. Luckily the entire dining train is currently at Weybourne for the closed period so that the four coaches can receive Ultrasonic Axle Testing later this month, so the RBR was ideally placed to undertake a generator swap, overdue for several years. This was successfully completed with the overhauled example now in situ.

The tyre turning work, also scheduled for E1969 during this period, is now no longer able to be completed at the present time, so we will be seeing some more of E1969 when it comes in again for this work later. I think this particular vehicle has been in for repairs more than any other the past few years, which has been slightly disappointing given how large a rebuild it received in the mid 2000's. However we continue to keep on top of it, justifiably given E1969's key role in the fleet.