February News Part 2

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

The vehicle interior, full of clutter from restoration both before and after the lockdowns, had a good tidy up this week and some of the walkways and floor have reemerged! This has brought an air of optimism and arguably could be considered a form of early spring clean...

The door lock and matching striking plate have been fitted to the second set of double luggage doors at the rear of the vehicle.

On the landward side double doors, the suitably tidied up edges have received more painting. Finally, the large section of internal varnished pillars which flank the hinged corridor door have been stripped back ready for a revarnish.

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

At long last, the new door jambs and varnished door cards have arrived from the suppliers, meaning the priority job of hanging the doors can restart. The Holt end seaward side door is the first to be started and has had a quick test-hang already, but this has highlighted some major alignment issues so it will be a while before it is hung properly.

The final compartment (number 1) has now been varnished meaning we are very close indeed to closing the doors on the five passenger compartments and declaring them completed.

British Railways 1960 Restaurant Buffet (Refurbished) E1969 (BRONZE)

The seventh conveyor belt coach took a slight back seat this week as staff were engaged in preparations for this year's mainline Cromer operations (more of which below) and assisting in ultrasonic axle testing across the steam, diesel and (mainline) Mark 1 fleet. Nevertheless both end doors are now in undercoat, the footboards have been cleaned and primed and the roof has been given a full coat of paint.

Towards the end of the week in an effort to regain time, a push was had on the seaward side which is now resplendent in Crimson & Cream gloss.

British Railways 1956 Tourist Second Open E4236 (BRONZE)

The eighth conveyor belt coach has received a thorough clean of its steam grime to ready it for further works before it can be painted. Several areas of corrosion have been identified during this process so we will have to decide how many cans of worms to open!

British Railways 1962 Tourist Second Open M4958 (REPAIRS)

More seat frames have received a brush down and primer paint and the Sheringham end saloon is almost complete. Other works have included cleaning up the Formica side paneling around where the upholstered side cards normally fit and a quick re-varnish of the seat edges, both made much easier by the absence of the seating.

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

The final painting works have continued well, with both platform ends being undercoated and glossed. The external rails have been rubbed down, primed and undercoated.

Two of the half doors which were stiff to open have been eased.

Inside the cabin, the join between green and cream has been tied in, the vacuum brake pipes have been painted red, the brake handle and lamp brackets painted white and finally, some paint work around doors has been touched up.

Maintenance

This week we had a visit from our friends at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway who assist us in running the dining train to Cromer. One of the most exciting parts of the visit were the inspections of two new vehicles for mainline use (Sheringham-Cromer only). Both of these have had Gold overhauls and will be a significant improvement to BGK M81033 which has now reached such a poor condition it is no longer suitable for "international use". The net gain of one coach means we now have five coaches registered which is great news as it offers options in terms of having a higher capacity (64 seat) coach on the set for the first time, and it also allows either of the two normal passenger vehicles on the set to be swapped out if we have a problem with them, which is a resilience that up until now we have not had.

The "Cromer fleet" for 2022 therefore now consists of:

• RBR E1969
• FO M3116
• SO M4372
• TSO E4641 (new)
• BCK E21224 (new)

February News Part 1

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

A further week of gently pushing forwards existing works to the doors and doorways. Following a fresh round of adjustments to the wooden frames on the double luggage area doors, the exposed woodwork has received another coat of protective primer.

The guards inward doors are receiving their brass step edges permanently now and these have been painted up to black gloss.

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

We are still awaiting the contractor to deliver the new door jambs to continue fitting the doors, which means preparation work along the seaward side continues. Sanding and filling is now more than halfway down this side, with most of the passenger compartment section done.

On the interior, compartment varnishing continues with compartment 2, the penultimate one, being treated this week. The last two compartments are more difficult as they are first class and have more complicated luggage racking to work around.

After a few weeks of vary careful machining and woodwork adjustments, the new window surround and associated beading has been fitted to the seaward side wheelchair saloon window. This has been done in conjunction with the refitting of the surrounding paneling, which has been retained from the coach's previous tenure.

British Railways 1955 Mark 1 Second Open M4372 (BRONZE)

The finishing touches to the sixth conveyor belt coach were completed this week. This involved final painting of the corridor connections, scraping of all paint from around the windows and a window clean. The door bump-stops also received some matt black to smarten them up.

With the coach finished, it was shunted out of the workshop and has now been theoretically returned to traffic, although it will have an exam by the maintenance team before it runs its first train.

British Railways 1960 Restaurant Buffet (Refurbished) E1969 (BRONZE)

The seventh conveyor belt coach has started off well. One of the first areas to be tackled was the roof, which was in the worst condition of all the conveyor belt coaches so far. Large areas were unstable so a day had to be spent scraping much of the landward side back to bare metal, along with a few smaller areas in the centre of the roof. The seaward side, away from the sun, had survived intact. There was also a failed patch, hiding a large dent, which was removed and any rivet holes sealed.

 This done, any areas of rust on the roof were locally treated and the areas that were back to bare metal patch painted in a 1st coat of roof paint. Next week should see a second coat applied over the whole roof.

Moving downwards, there were several areas, much like M4372 but not as bad, around the windows and below the gutter which were starting to bubble with rust. Without time to do anything drastic, we have kept the wolf from the door by scraping off the bubbles and locally treating what is exposed and what we can get to before patch painting in the "islands".

The sound bodywork has been thoroughly washed of steam dirt and sanded back lightly ready to receive a coat of gloss paint. Door grab handles and emergency handrails have been removed to facilitate next week's painting, and the handrails have received a freshen up with black gloss whilst they are off the vehicle.

With the roof taking longer than normal, we have reshuffled the order in which we do things to keep everyone busy. Consequently, some of the items which would nortmally be done towards the end have been tackled early. For example the corridor end faceplates have been cleaned up and repainted in black. The sign-writing has also been applied to the Sheringham end....

....whilst at the Holt end the gangway door has been undercoated ready to be painted brown.

Next week should see quite a bit of paint applied to all the areas that have been prepared this week.

British Railways 1956 Tourist Second Open E4236 (BRONZE)

The eighth conveyor belt coach has now entered the workshop to dry out. All being well there will be times over the next few weeks when we are able to progress E4236 at the same time as E1969 in order to regain the time lost tackling M4372.

British Railways 1962 Tourist Second Open M4958 (REPAIRS)

A trial fit of a single seat and base has been made at one end to check how the pattern looks in the context of the coach interior. It gives a flavour of what is in store when the works are complete.

Whilst the seating is all removed, the crumbling BR paint on the hidden woodwork is all being dusted off where it is unstable and the remaining areas re-protected in red primer. This will help reduce the dust levels under the seats and in the coach in general. So far, 1/4 of the vehicle has been completed.

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

The vehicle is really starting to look the part now and is clearly on the home straight. Internally, the team have completed painting all the walls and fittings with the exception of the emergency brake which is awaiting red gloss.

On the outside, which has been limited due to the time of year, both platform ends have been primed and the running boards glossed following a few days of mild conditions.

Lots of little jobs now to complete in the next couple of weeks, finishing off but also the undercoating and top coating of the platform ends when conditions allow.

The aim is to have the vehicle available for the Spring Steam Gala in April, although the gala organisers have not conformed yet whether there will be a need to operate the vehicle or not, so the restoration team await the decision with bated breath! including UC & TC of platform ends.

Maintenance

The C exams are still in progress with the half term rake of coaches being the focus. The chill caused by the high winds at Sheringham has been extreme at times this week!

Workshop

Our new portable workshop lights are in the process of having their tripods removed as they are cumbersome when taken inside narrow coach interiors. We have decided to instead secure them on recycled scrap brake discs from large cars/vans. The first two have been done as a trial and have been declared successful, so a further four will be completed to finish the set.

As if all of the carriage work were not enough, some paintwork repairs are also being undertaken to the Y14 steam loco, where the paint on the boiler cladding had chipped away leading to unsightly patches. This far into the loco's boiler ticket we won't be going to town, but the loose chips have been removed, some filler applied and patch painting is in progress which will improve its appearance for the next few years until it is overhauled again.