May News Part 1

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

No prgress to report.

London North Eastern Railway 1924 Quad Articulated Set 74

The jewel in the railway's crown, the Quad Arts, have arrived at Weybourne for their refresh, becoming coaches 10, 11, 12 and 13 in the conveyor belt programme. One important difference is that we are swapping paint for varnish this time of course! It is fair to say that since their arrival they have dominated the labour allocation which is why several other projects have slowed or been paused for the duration of the Quads' stay. The first task after shunting them in (they take up two bays in the shed, one whole road) was a thorough clean as they were thick with steam loco oil. We had never come across them this dirty before, which is no suprise as they covered a much greater mileage during the "Covid season" when they ran all of our services.

With a thorough scruib down completed, and some semblence of varnished teak revealed once again, it was time for a rub down of the surface to prepare the bodysides for varnish. This has to be extremely thorough as the coach is a complicated mix of beading and alcoves, all of which have to be explored with the sandpaper. A large team of people spent five days completing this phase.

It was during the preparation works that we discovered that whilst the seaward side had survived well, sadly the summer of intensive use had taken its toll on the landward side and the sun had unfortunately destabalised the varnish in lots of areas, particularly below the windows and around raised beading. This meant we have had to split the set into two: land side and sea side, with the latter now declared ready for its full coat of varnish. The former is instead having the localised damaged areas stripped back to bare wood and new varnish built up, for which several layers will be required. This work is about half way to completion at present, and will continue next week.

The final job to be tackled was a damaged door striker plate which had split out. This was repaired with fresh wood and the door lock mechanism refitted and tested.

British Railways 1956 Brake Corridor Composite E21103 (SILVER)

What little resource which is not dedicated to the Quads has been directed towards E21103. Externally, the final section of bodywork, the Sheringham corridor end, has now been completed with the jumper cable mounts and data panel also fitted which completes this end and makes it ready for painting.

Painting of either end has however been postponed as it is much easier to do them when the vehicle gets a space in the satgaing area (currently occupied by the Quads). Instead just the two main bodysides have been progressed using portable platforms. The primer has been applied to both sides with an undercoat also added to the landward side.

On the underframe, the Holt end bogie has been targetted to bring it closer in line to the overhauled Sheringham end bogie. It has been steam cleaned and all the outside faces repainted into gloss black to smarten it up. All of the brakegear has been removed, the bearing faces all cleaned up and regreased followed by reassembly. The misshaped brake pull rods are now out for the same adjustment treatement which the first bogie received, but other than that both bogies are now ready to return under the vehicle.

On the interior, work to fit the replacement lower door card panels continues steadily, with three out of four now sucessfully trimmed and dry fitted. They have sadly proven to be more troublesome than predicted but we will get there! Beading out and painting of the two former toilets, now store cupboards, also continues. The wheelchair saloon is also going back together again, with much replacement beading, trim, panels and door surrounds being created ready to fit back in place.

British Railways 1962 Tourist Second Open M4958 (BRONZE)

With the Quad Art takeover, only the steady reupholstering of the seat cushions has been continuing.

London Transport 1955 20 Ton Ballast Hopper HW426

Other than attaching two "swan neck" vacuum pipe ends to the new through pipe, the hopper has been waiting outside for its team to return to it.

British Railways 1953 20 Ton Loriot DB904093

No progress to report.

Hurst Nelson 1944 4 Wheel Petroleum Tank 5304

The main barrel of the tank has been jet washed following the spraying of a traffic film remover like substance. It has worked very well.

The team are now rubbing down the tank before they attack the solebars and running gear.

Maintenance

The main "A set" have had their A exam completed and returned to traffic. Shortly afterwards, a table was pulled off the wall but this was quickly repaired with the help of the facilities at Sheringham generously provided by our friends in the Signalling department.

The dining set was prepared to run to Cromer but sadly this was cancelled. The set did at least run a "normal" diner from Sheringham to Holt however.

Two leaking air pipes on BCK E21224 were tigtened up, so we await with bated breath to see if this has cured the problem of the brakes not quite functioning 100%.