November News Part 1

There was no Blog last week because we were away visiting the East Lancashire Railway for their DMU Weekend.

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

The luggage van and guards doors have continued to be a focus with brown gloss paint now being applied. I am informed that this mirrors Thompson stock during the war years when the dark colour was stipulated for when loading/unloading during the blackout occurred.

The two hinged end doors pictured last time continue to receive woodwork repairs with the inlayed panels getting some more coats of varnish. The other area of progress is the toilet, the ceiling of which has been repainted.

More sections of the sink cupboard are also taking shape, it will probably not be long before all of the interesting pipework has been boxed in!

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The vehicle has been returned to Weybourne for a further stint of finishing off works. We wish to complete the underneath once and for all before the weather turns too bad. Accordingly, all of the remaining sections of bare wooden floor and pipework brackets have been primed and gloss blacked this week. Other than an air brake system test we are now complete as far as the exterior and underneath is concerned.

Inside the vehicle, the four steam heat elements which were found to be defective have been removed and are now in the process of being rectified on the bench by our Inspector. The other large task outstanding was the fitting and plumbing of the sink, taps, associated pipework and toilet tank system drain. These are all connected together so have to be installed as one. Things are going well but the sink has ended up being dismantled again as there were problems fitting the plug hole drain pipe. Amazingly, during the strip down, wedged inside the porcelain overflow, was found a glass bile which once contained Methadone! Helpfully marked "poison", it was most likely issued to a recovering Heroin addict, possibly during the 1970's, and is the latest piece of social history found during E21224's restoration.

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

The two wheelchair accessible window frame apertures, completed last time, have since been cleaned down and the edges painted ready to receive the window frames themselves.

The actual windows themselves, have now changed beyond recognition. They are now fully cleaned back to bare aluminium with all visible areas polished ready for service. Both sets of smashed sliding lights have been removed, swapped out for replacements, also cleaned/polished and the runner mechanism overhauled and fixed back in place. The section below which will contain the main window glass, has been carefully measured and there are now two panes of glass on order. These have taken a long time, as there was so much work to do on them, but are now really taking shape.

Team bodywork has worked wonders on the Holt corridor end. This has mirrored the Sheringham end with the various skin-work repairs required, and a focus on the two top corners around the gutter which is such a feature of Mark 1 degradation. This has been completed remarkably quickly, meaning that metalwork is now pretty much complete on the vehicle itself, with the exception of the doorways (see below).

Attention has now turned to the doors themselves. These were all removed and are currently off the vehicle. Rather than strip them right down (time consuming) the fact that this overhaul is a Silver means we are taking each door on a bench and cutting off rotten sections with it still assembled onto its frame and doing intermediate renewals. This is working well so far, with many of the riveted patches applied by our predecessors (probably during a Bronze overhaul or repaint) being removed in favour of a new welded bottom.

So far one door has had a new bottom and a section has received the same but is also having some new window corners. The proximity to the glass means the latter has to be carefully protected/covered during the repair.

Returning to the vehicle itself, we now have a contractor who has started to visit each stripped out doorway in turn and replace the corroded lower sections of the door frame, making sure they are attached to the frame of the coach at the bottom unlike the old ones! At the same time, and addition strip of angle, which we think was added by BR, is being removed as it was causing corrosion problems along otherwise good pillars. This is going well with two doorways now repaired.

Other work has included the reinstatement of the inter-car lighting jumper cable wiring at the Holt end of the coach, which had been cut out during the coach's previous overhaul. With the wires routed inside, and the already mentioned gutter repairs also completed, the adjacent ceiling panels have been refitted at this end.

British Railways 1954 Mark 1 Suburban Third W46139 (BRONZE)

The third of the conveyor belt coaches suffered delays due to Norfolk Lights Express preparations. However once these were completed then the seaward side of the vehicle was able to join the landward in having its coat of crimson paint.

After that, the familiar scraping down of the window glass followed, with keying up for the next coat and a coat of varnish applied. Along with the completion of the wobbly armrest repairs, this rendered the coach complete, and it was shunted out joining previous repaintee E43041.

British Railways 1955 Mark 1 Suburban Third Lavatory Open E48001

The fourth of the conveyor belt vehicles was tripped up to us bang on time, thanks go to a currently rather stretched operating department for helping us with this! This allowed E48001 to be swiftly moved into the shed immediately replacing W46139, which is a great help as we need to crack on with it if we are to achieve our targets for the conveyor belt by Christmas.

British Railways 1960 Covered Carriage Truck E94464 (REPAIR)

As part of the Norfolk Lights preparations we were required to undertake a second spring change on the CCT so it was capable of carrying the rather heavy generators used for the lighting. We did put our spare set of springs on the vehicle about a month ago, but sadly these were found to not be good enough, so over the last month the original springs have been away for overhaul. A day or so after they returned, E94464 was lifted again and the springs swapped. It now sits true and level and was quickly pulled back put of the shed for the generators to be fitted. It was then tripped to Sheringham to join the party just in time, with rope lights-a-plenty being attached. E94464 is now fully back in service and performing each evening on the NLE services.

British Railways 1962 First Open M3116 (REPAIR)

Another winter repair job has been the dining train First Open. This was relegated to summer only running following burst steam heat piping along sections lagged with asbestos. An priced plan was accordingly required to remove the lethal stuff before repairs were possible. Immediately after E94464 was completed, M3116 was brought in and lifted for the contractors to remove the lagging from the affected areas.

This done, a week of pipework repairs followed, with two or three sections being cut out and replaced. We owe our gratitude to pipework extraordinaire Trevor for doing this for us, when he is normally employed on the vintage vehicle side. With the repairs complete, the coach was lowered back onto its bogies. A leaking toilet drain valve was also attended to during its shed visit.

Disappointingly, whilst being steam tested on the way back to Sheringham, another hole was blown through a different section of pipe, indicative really of the age of the pipework system as a whole. Current thinking is that the new hole can be patched up this time at Sheringham, which will be much more straightforward as the pipe is not covered in asbestos!

British Railways 1961 English Electric Type 3 D6732

The latest arrival in the shed is the Class 37 diesel locomotive D6732. It is inside for minor welding repairs, bodywork and a repaint. Work on the former will be starting next week in readiness for contractors to come in to complete the lion's share of the work.

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

Painting continues as the weather allows. The good weather has been kind to proceedings! A start has been made on the cabin interior, which had been cleared out ready for work to begin.

The second top coat has been applied to the Sheringham end veranda. The door furniture, although fitted previously, had to be adjusted and made good.

Sanding and filling, where necessary, has been completed on the two running boards readying them for undercoat. The solebars have also been completed, as these were unable to be tackled previously whilst the vehicle had scaffolding around it.

Southern Railway 1952 Covered Carriage Truck S1439S (BRONZE)

The localised repairs to this van have been completed but the van has yet to vacate the loco shed, its space in the station taken by the Christmas packing coach which has come up in readiness for the big red fat man to visit! We will attempt to get a full photo of S1439S once it is outside.

Maintenance

A seat has been refitted to Class 101 DMU E51228 after it had been removed in order to access the radiator header tank for repairs. The Diesel fitter ran out of time with the reassembly so we were happy to fix the seat back into place, returning the interior to normality. The vehicle shouldn't be needed in service until February at the earliest.

Workshop

Inside the upholstery department, the first of the seat bases destined for TSO M4958 have been completed in red "boomerang" moquette. This material was used in the very first Mark 1 coaches in 1951 and is very pleasing on the eye. With the withdrawal of TSO E4667 we no longer have any Mark 1's in service with any red/orange seating, so we hope to fill this gap shortly.