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!