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.
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