March News Part 2

London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866 (GOLD)

No progress to report.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The signwriting on the outside of the vehicle has now been completed. Outstanding items since the last update included the remainder of the corridor end data and the underframe lettering. Aside from the normal historic and NNR required lettering and symbols, including the "Emergency Lighting Point" and brake release chord stars, extra mainline registered features have been applied on this coach, such as wheel profile markings on the bogie and an arrow on one corner of the vehicle which acts an an aid to identifying components for maintenance and exam, such as wheels and doors.

The opportunity of the vehicle being out of the staging allowed for the new batteries to be fitted. These have a higher rating than many of the batteries fitted to several other coaches, hopefully this will help to power the new toilet which is due to be fitted, along with longer lighting life given this coach is due to run on a reasonable number of after-dark services.

With lining and lettering completed, E21224 was returned to the staging area for yet another rub down and application of the final coat: varnish. This has sealed in all the previous work and the repaint is now officially concluded.

Attention has since turned to the exterior "trimmings". The full length handrails have been bolted into place on the guards doors, and the brass grab handles fitted to the four passenger doors.

More components including the locking bars for the luggage door mechanisms and the original BR cast end data panel (now officially superseded by the "mainline data panel" but its nice to have it on anyway for historic interest) are currently on the bench receiving a final top coat of black paint before fitting. The job list for the exterior of the vehicle is now virtually exhausted so the focus through the spring will be on the interior.

Speaking of the interior, the troublesome vestibule ceilings continue to require fettling: some beading previously thought to be complete has required more minor work this week. The four vestibule lighting units have been finished off, sprayed silver and fitted into place.

The work to fit the internal woodwork and panelling to the four doors has progressed well, with the remaining three doors fitted out. One was missing a single component so an un-restored example had to be extracted from spares and rubbed down and varnish built up on it, which has delayed the completion of the doors. Such is life when dealing with restoration! Additionally, after the woodwork was first fitted two doors have had problems with the wood interfering with the operation of the sliding droplight windows, so again more dismantling and modifications were required.  

Also being restored are some rails/bars associated with the guards and luggage areas.

The flooring contractors made a third visit to see the coach to finalise their details for laying the lino flooring. We hope for this to be fitted very soon so the interior can be progressed further.

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

Everyone's favourite Holt based solicitors firm, Bedell, Maynard & Turl, have been progressing the Southern Guards Van in their socially distanced emporium. The main theme continues to be "stripping down" with the Sheringham end verandah wall now removed as this will require total replacement. It was suffering the usual wood rot in the areas near the floor where water sits, but also had issues half way up and had already been spliced up all the way up one side, using a solid piece of wood with grooves cut into it to fool people into thinking it was planked!

Some other timber has also been removed including one of the roof planks.

More of the exterior (which is being retained) has been rubbed down ready for repainting in due course, including the Holt end cabin wall.

The corroded stove pipe and upper verandah ends which were dispatched to Weybourne are being worked on separately. The corroded steel skin is being replaced with new galvanised material, these new pieces having been cut out now and are shortly to be reattached to the original framework, which has been retained. The latter has been cleaned down and is now being repainted.

Maintenance

Brake Third E43357 received the remainder of its floorboard and guards floor coats of paint, completing the cosmetic maintenance tasks. In addition to this, the unreliable handbrake protection valve (which stops the train brakes being released when the handbrake is on) has had a temporary repair made to improve it for this year until the valves can be re-engineered with better springs; a side project which has encountered pandemic caused delays. The coach was returned to Sheringham to join two other suburbans so we now have three of our five coaches ready for the railway's relaunch on April 12th.

Composite Lavatory E43041 is the next in line at Weybourne to be repaired. This vehicle only needs a vacuum cylinder overhauling to make it serviceable again. The naughty cylinder has been removed, stripped down and components overhauled. By the end of the week an attempt to reassemble it has been made but alignment problems were encountered rendering success elusive.

Corridor Brake Second W35148 remains inside the workshop for drawhook and buckeye coupling replacements, however it is still awaiting manpower to undertake these tasks. In the meantime, some additional work tidying up the footboards has been undertaken with them now looking much smarter in undercoat black (gloss to follow).

Meanwhile at Sheringham the C examinations are all but complete on the main "A set" which is required for the 12th April. All that really remains is the full set to be formed up (once the repairs above have been completed) and final tasks signed off and the set is ready to roll. Discussions are currently underway around the boardroom tables as to which vehicles will form the second "B set" for hopeful use in the summer when the railway hopes to be in a position to start steadily increasing operations. It will be a long and steady road moving from the April single train service back up to something resembling full capability.

Workshop

As suggested last time, the agricultural jack for the museum has progressed greatly. A large lump of new timber has been cut to an interesting pear shape and hollowed out to accommodate the screw mechanism. Much of the ironwork has now been returned to the wooden "core" and it is currently back together and awaits treating, painting and finishing.

March News Part 1

We have been pleased to hear that the railway plans to reopen on the 12th April which will hopefully be the end of this lockdown malarkey. The railway will be reopening on a staged basis in accordance with the infamous road map and the initial carriage requirement will be for one 5 coach compartment set. This will be the suburban 4 set with the disabled converted corridor brake on the end.

London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866 (GOLD)

Back in the workshop the Thompson saloon has been handed back to the volunteers, with work on the electrical system and cleaning up the sliding window frames continuing. The latter is now complete and very nice they look too.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The lettering and lining has dominated the progress on the outside of the vehicle. Shortly after our last update, the upper lining was completed which necessitated a shunt in the shed to extract E21224 from the staging (E1866 taking its place) so that access could be improved to apply the lower lining below the windows. This was quickly completed and the next stage was the lettering on the red bodysides. This includes the vehicle's number, "Guard" and "1" markings on several doors along with a "Load 1 Ton Distributed" in each corner of the luggage areas. Theses are gold with a black border so it was decided to get these out of the way first before moving onto the single colour lettering.

With the numbering complete (it is really nice to see the coach at long last get its unique identity back) the block lettering has now been started, and is currently still in progress. So far, the end lettering at the Holt end has been completed and the solebars have received a final coat of black gloss to pep them up ready for the underframe lettering next week. This remains to be started, along with all the end lettering for the Sheringham end.

At the same time as the exterior finishing work, the inside also continues to progress, albeit in a slightly less glittery manner. The vestibule ceilings have received more beading and have been second coated, so we have reached the milestone of all the ceilings throughout the whole vehicle being fully painted, with just a few lights left to install.

Much of this week has been spend further sanding and filling the floors, which sadly were deemed not quite smooth enough when the flooring contractors were assessing the vehicle ready to fit the replacement lino. This has now been completed and we are now awaiting also for the contractors to return and fit the new flooring, which will be another major milestone in the reassembly.

The final area of interior achievement has been the fitting out of the internal paneling on the first of four passenger doors. This has, in the main, gone together very well; as much of the vanished woodwork was already ready having been restored in the past few years and stored. There have been some issues with levels towards the bottom which had to be overcome - a consequence of matching door cards from other vehicles onto doors from different ones!

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

The biggest surprise recently has been the M&GN Society's mechanism to bring some volunteers back whilst maintaining the social distancing limits at Weybourne. They have set up a small base at Holt and three volunteers are to progress wagon restoration separately for the foreseeable future. This has had the unexpected bonus of some "low priority" work being able to be considered/progressed. Rather than a new dawn, the scheme is actually a resumption of a previous group who undertook mid life overhaul and repaints to the LMS brakevan and tank wagons in the goods set. 

Their latest target is the Southern Railway brake 55167, which was another vehicle which was showing disappointing levels of degradation following a full strip down overhaul at Weybourne not too long ago. Water ingress, wood rot and peeling paint had made it a sorry sight, and it has been on the list to do for a few years now. It has now been brought into their restoration tent and a strip down rapidly progressed. The side doors, roof vents and stove pipes have been removed allowing the failed roof felting to be stripped off revealing the planked wooden roof below.

The two end verandah panels have been removed and sent to Weybourne for repair, as these are metal and have corroded.

A hole has also been found in the stove pipe!

A reasonable amount of the peeling paint has been stripped back off the wooden sides to ready it for treatment and repainting.

Maintenance

With repairs to Suburban Third W46139 completed, it was taken back down to Sheringham with the Class 08 and swapped for another two vehicles: Suburban Composite Lavatory E43041 and the disabled brake W35148.

The former is for a vacuum cylinder overhaul with the latter having failed drawhook and buckeye couplings. Neither have been started yet but the footboards on both of them, plus Brake Third E43357 have all received some parch repainting work just to improve their appearance and longevity.

Whilst at Sheringham a big sort out was had of the sets down there. It was remarkable just how mixed up everything was but after six hours we had rough operating sets formed into each of the three platforms. Apparently ever lever in the signalbox was pulled during the shunt except one, quite an achievement! The reforming makes it easier for the rest of the exams to be undertaken pre-opening, and also aids the dropping off and picking up of the remaining vehicles that need to go to/from Weybourne for the repairs. It will also be easier for the operating department to form the sets prior to April 12th - win win win!

Staying at Sheringham, the slow grind of the C examinations continues with a day of wheelset measurements just the latest item to report from a long list of checks.

Back at Weybourne the vacuum cylinder has been refitted to Brake Third E43357 so it won't be long before this one is ready to return to service.

The guards van floor repaint is now also completed with a minor modification made to one of the floor drains to make it removable - strange as this sounds this will aid the future fitting of equipment for the Norfolk Lights Trains.

Workshop

The clocking in machine has now been reassembled and the next project, a vintage (possibly agricultural) jack, has been started. This was donated just before the pandemic and is a nice item despite not being railway.The large wooden "body" of the jack is rotten so will be replaced, with all the ironmongery being transferred across - making it a semi-replica. It will live on however and avoids the bonfire in spirit.