September News Part 1

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

Again this week is somewhat of a "more progress ongoing" type of update, with the previously introduced tasks such as door fitting work and the corridor connection bellows both being moved closer towards completion.

The inward opening guards doors are having their handles fitted whilst on the corridor various metal hoops are being fitted and sealed to the varnished wooden end located on the vehicle itself.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

With E21103 taking priority, sister E21224 is progressing at a more relaxed pace, although the jobs in hand are rather less severe than E21103's... On the exterior, all of the emergency isolating valves, and the air brake cocks on the bufferbeam ends, have been given a further two coats of red/yellow as required, as they hadn't had enough when we first painted them. Worth remembering is that yellow and red are both quite poor covering paints, so often need more coats than most other colours. Underneath the coach, the moving of the steam heat pipework to avoid the future fitting toilet tank has been completed, with around half of the new supporting brackets also completed. Two more brackets are all that remain to be fitted before the brand new steam system can be tested for the first time.

Sticking on the theme of steam heat, the historically inaccurate replacement guard's heater never received its custom made grill we had planned for it. This week, said grill was fabricated using off-cuts of steel bar and angle, married up to a sheet of stainless mesh ordered in. After painting in heat-proof silver, the creation is now ready for fitting into place, and will stop the heating element (taken from a passenger compartment) burning the guards angles or igniting their trouser legs!

Just next to the trouser-busting heater is the guards desk, which as mentioned in earlier updates had been rather scuffed and needed a piece removing from it to get it to fit past the relocated air brake pipework. You would not know this now however, as the holes have been filled and any poor areas recoated in cream gloss, so it now looks most presentable once again.

A final minor niggle rectified has been the fitting of the compartment door stops to the floor. The doors ran for a week or so without them, but longer term the enthusiastic opening of the doors would have damaged the runner mechanism without the supporting stops at the bottom. Three got lost during the restoration so new ones were cut faithful to the originals, and the whole set had new rubbers fitted after the blocks had been varnished.

A start has been made on the partial final fitting out of the toilet. The coach will be having the toilet itself fitted by contractors later this year, however there is no reason why we cannot add all the other components in advance. The first of which has been the skirting boards. These have been made and painted on the bench and were cut to size and fitted this week. The bin and sink now remain to be tackled, the latter requiring plumbing work to make operational.

Although no work has been done inside the compartments, I couldn't resist another photo as they look so good with the lights on, especially the two first class ones!

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

This has remained "priority one" and we continue to make good, swift, progress. The remaining windows, on the landward side, which have been selected for removal have now been extracted. All the window frames for the seaward side have now been fully cleaned back to bare aluminium and the inside edges painted up into gloss, to form a barrier between the alloy frame and the steel coach. Cleaning of the glass panes themselves is also now in progress, as we hope to refit these back into the coach in record time.

Meanwhile, the window apertures in the coach bodyside have all been repaired on the seaward side, with the landward side now in progress. Most of these repairs have been patches to the bottom edge of the apertures.

The two windows from the wheelchair accessible saloon, which are of a different design, have been removed and set aside for now, as we will replace them with standard windows if we can.

The most advanced side, the landward, has had all rusty metal cleaned back where the windows will be relocated, and the "hidden" areas painted up into gloss to match the window frames.

With the window shapes coming to a close, attention is turning more concertedly to the doorways, which will be more involved than the windows. We are currently in the process of stripping them down, removing the wooden door jambs and assessing how badly the steel framework behind has corroded. Unlike some areas of the coach, which have come out better than we expected, these are looking rather ominous with lots of corrosion and distortion being found. It is likely these will take somewhat longer to sort out than the window repairs.

The two corridor ends continue to be stripped down by willing hands. The focus has been on the Sheringham end corridor this week, with the metal "hoop" being separated from the wood fixed to the bodywork, in order to remove/release it so that repairs can commence.

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167 (SILVER)

Replacing further woodwork in the verandah area has been slow progress, however they are almost there, thanks to the Carpenter, his router and labourer!

The roof vents and chimney fittings are now in place ready for painting, which became the last task prior to the team's scaffold structure and tent being removed, bringing the brakevan back into daylight.

The new access has been used to jet wash and tidy up the underframe, which looked untidy compared to the much fresher body!

Most of the rubbish has been cleared from the restoration area and the inside of the van prepared for the next phase of works. It is hoped for the vehicle to be positioned under the awning of the Holt museum to allow the final exterior painting to take place. Before the vehicle was exposed, paintwork concentrated on the landward side, with two top coats applied to make life easier if/when the vehicle moves under the awning, where access to the seaward side will be easier. Meanwhile ironwork (handles, catches etc) have all been cleaned up and treated ready for undercoating. 

Maintenance

Maintenance work has focused on gala preparations for the steam event this weekend. We had been informed several vintage coaches would be in use so efforts were made to complete the engineering acceptances for GER 853 and M&GN 129, the latter being re-examined after having its new chassis fitted. Part of the outstanding work was testing, as subsequently passing, several welds. As far as I'm aware all was well so these vehicles are now fit for regular traffic in the future.

However it later transpired they weren't required but at least they will be ready for next year, or indeed the tail end of this year if required. The Gresley Buffet car was also brought to Weybourne for gala  preparation, the first time it had been used since Covid. Mold had struck the inside, on most of the surfaces including the ceilings! This was attacked by a team who blitzed it and returned it to former glories! The vehicle also had a mechanical exam to pass it fit for use again, and it was delivered to Sheringham for forming into a gala set of coaches.

Finally, a start has now been made on a round of "A exams" for the regular service vehicles.

Workshop

The now normal stream of non-coach items have been being quietly processed in the workshop. The ex Ipswich platform trolley has been completed and finished in Great Eastern blue. This was replaced by a vintage wheelchair from Sheringham which has been repainted, given a general MOT and had its arms reupholstered. Also arrived has been a broken clock and a rotten bench, both of which are now also in progress!

Finally, we are preparing a headboard for a special occasion later this month, the inscription of which will follow in due course. The board has been cut out, sanded, primed and glossed in blue. It will be lettered shortly.