September News Part 4

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

Work on the interior continues to move forwards. The most visible difference has been the fitting of much internal door planking in the luggage and guards areas. Two sets of double doors and an inward opening guards door have been treated - note the planking is still to be painted once its finished and fettled. Nevertheless it is nice seeing the previously skeletal doors fill out!

Also in progress are the varnished corridor end hinged doors. Several rotten panels were removed some time ago and new ones are being made from strips glued together and then planed flat. The replacement set has been machined and any holes and gaps filled.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The preparations for the sink fitting, introduced last week, continue, but we haven't posted a photo yet as the relevant items are still not quite in place. It is important to get the plumbing and preparations correct before final fitting!

A small job completed has been fitting felts into the door edges of all the internal sliding doors. These cushion the blow slightly when the doors are slammed shut, and some of them had degraded or fallen off over the years so we have stuck some velcro (the furry side!) in as a modern alternative, and looks much better than some might think!

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

The mundane stripping of doorways has continued in a similar fashion to previous weeks. The seaward side guards doorway in particular has done well and has now become the first of the doorways to have had the metalwork, where required, renewed. This also involved replacing wasted fixings for the guards handrails, which will avoid the "it came off in me 'and mister!" scenario in the future!

A section of "lower skirt" adjacent to this doorway has had its old rivets removed, the joint cleaned up, and will be re-fixed soon.

The required welding repairs have also been made to the Sheringham end, seaward side corner, at the top. Framework done, the panel-work soon followed and now only requires the gutter returning.

Volunteers have been particularly busy continuing the paint up the small mass of parts removed from the two corridor ends. Nearly all of this is complete and in gloss black now, although we did find a small box of metal parts from the Sheringham end which got missed, so these are now behind are are only just being cleaned up...

Possibly the largest visual change has been the fitting of X of the aluminium window frames back into the coach, which shows the pace at which the reconstruction is continuing the progress at. It won't be too long before glass can start to be returned to the vehicle making the compartments sealed again.

The woodwork from two (of the five) compartments has been removed from the window surrounds and stripped back of old varnish ready for repairs. These are required to be repaired and revarnished before we put the glass back in, as several of the wooden components actually pin the glass into the frame.

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

This week the Sheringham end veranda doors have been fitted and these are now ready for the "furniture" to be added. Brian has begun

The painting of the underframe has now begun, and Holt Museum visitors have been told not to feed the workers!

Workshop

The station bench, which has been mentioned in several updates, is now assembled once again, and has been painted up to gloss. There must have been some areas requiring further attention however, as by the end of the week there were areas of primer in evidence again.

"The Earl Haig" headboard was completed on time for its big day, with two large Poppy symbols added to the original wording. It had its moment of glory this weekend and although I wasn't present I am informed it was well received. What we hadn't realised was as well as doing a trip on the locomotive 90775, the headboard played a more prominent role and was revealed on the platform during the ceremonies. Hopefully the headboard added to the occasion.