More Doors and Painting

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

The ceiling panels which have been in production over the last few months have now been fitted to the toilet and adjacent corridor area.

Also in the same area, teething problems with the door lock activated circuitry for the toilet extractor fan have been resolved and it is now working correctly.

Sticking with the same theme of wiring, a modern twist has been added to the guards compartment control panel, volt meters to assess battery life with in built USB sockets! This will certainly be the first brake on the NNR that will be capable of charging the guard's phone!

At the Sheringham corridor end, a reclaimed step plate from the Thompson BG has been fitted and painted.

British Railways 1961 Brake First Open (Kitchen) M14021 (GOLD)

A vanilla period for this vehicle, with the rebuilding of the final two (double) kitchen doors continuing steadily. The frame repairs to door #7 are now complete and a new hygiene friendly back panel is being produced for it.

Door #8 continues to be improved by volunteers, with the skin now separated from the frame, which promptly split into three pieces!

The landward side battery box doors have been removed, dismantled and are now being repaired and readied for repainting. There were many layers of tar like paint to remove to get back to the original wood.

The wooden window surrounds for the small windows in the guards and kitchen areas have been extracted from storage so that they can be stripped and sanded, standard practice for a Gold level overhaul.

British Railways 1962 First Open M3116 (SILVER)

The paint preparation work has now been completed around the entire exterior, which allowed primer to be applied quickly to the two corridor ends and the landward side.

The landward side remains the main focus now, as we seek to bring it to the same stage as the seaward. Red and cream undercoats have been applied to the top and bottom followed by two coats of red gloss along the top and one coat of cream gloss round the middle band. This gloss was then applied to the seaward side as well so both sides are now at a similar stage.

The gangway end repairs are now complete, the final tasks being the repainting of inside the corridor "tunnels" along with cleaning and painting of the gangway faceplates.

Internally, the Holt end vestibule has now been re-varnished so it matches the other end. The removed door furniture has been returned to place. The removed sections of window surrounds inside the passenger saloons have now been refitted and any sun damaged sections re-varnished. We are now making smaller improvements to the interior such as sticking down the edges of some of the table tops which had lifted in the sun,. It won't be long before cleaning work will be the focus on the inside now that the windows are back in and other tasks are coming to an end.

British Railways 1958 Class 101 Railcar Driving Motor Brake Second M51188

One last push required to tie up the loose ends on this vehicle before it is declared ready for the 2023 season. Inside the guards compartment, all the areas of yellow paint which were deemed too thin on the walls have had another coat so this is now up to an acceptable finish. All that remains now is to finish off the emergency equipment.

A new wooden frame has been machined and primed which will screw onto the front of the ambulance cupboard. New glass for the frame has been made and delivered ready to fit once the frame is ready and the poster printed off. At the same time, new emergency glass to shield the opening handle has also been made ready to fit once we order the final missing items from inside the cupboard itself.

Various new straps to hold the fire extinguishers and wheelchair ramp have been measured out and now await sewing up.