More LNER Progress

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

Sliding top-light installation continues with the half way point officially reached this week when the fourth and final window on the seaward side received its sliding lights. The team have now switched to the landward side with frame fitting progressing well.

London North Eastern Railway 1938 Brake Third Open E16631E (GOLD)

A further set of photos has been received from LS Engineering showing off the latest progress with the coach. The body has been lifted off the bogies and placed onto stands to allow more thorough underframe and bogie work to be undertaken. Some brake rods have been found to be bent along with some steel underframe sections. These are being remedied, and areas that are in good order being painted black. The steam heat pipework also continues.

On the exterior, the roof has been scraped down and cleaned up ready for the new canvas to be fitted.

Internally, the cant rail woodwork and the ceiling panels are in the process of being painted white.

London North Eastern Railway 1937 Restaurant Buffet E9128E (BRONZE)

The roof repairs have now been completed on the vehicle which has a fully sealed and hopefully watertight canvas once again... Also completed are the replacement of the corridor end rain hoods, which will also hopefully deter future water from getting where it shouldn't.

With the roof signed off, it was cleaned and given the first of two coats of grey roof paint.

Moving downwards, the seaward side has now been repainted with two coats of gloss applied to both the cream and the crimson panels.

The lining and lettering was in good order when the coach came in, so these have been masked off this time and retained saving some time on the painting. The seaward side is now hardening before we contemplate the final coat of varnish.

Meanwhile both of the coach ends and the landward bodyside, which required the most woodwork repair, have been completed and have just been handed over for painting to commence. The kitchen end of the landward side, looks particularly good with its replacement panelling replacing the split and bowed examples that went before.

On the interior, all of the activity has been inside the kitchen. The rewiring work continues and has become somewhat of a rabbit warren, but we press on with our mission for reliability and simplification. A pair of equipment cupboards on the wall have also been significantly reinforced, following a request from the users of the kitchen who had noticed the cupboards struggling with the weight of the equipment inside. We caught them just in time as the original mounting arrangement was discovered to be inappropriate for the weight we are no putting in the cupboard, so good communication has allowed improvements to be made now before any structural failures!

Finally, the roof destination boards have received two coats of varnish on one side, and will be similarly treated on the other sides next week all being well.

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

Work on the seaward side battery box rebuild continues, and is reportedly nearing completion.

British Railways 1957 Class 101 Railcar Driving Trailer Composite Lavatory E56062 (SILVER)

With E9128E now brought up to painting stage, some resource has been able to drop back onto E56062. The seaward side battery box refurbishment continues with the repaired doors and cleaned up box being undercoated ready for gloss.

The front end has seen the lower skirt filled where there were welding marks and the bufferbeam completely needle gunned of its old paint. We were originally planning to just chip off unstable areas but this grew somewhat into a full strip after further issues were found with the old paint.

British Railways 1954 13 Ton Pipe Open B740918

No progress to report.

British Railways (GWR Design) 1958 "Fruit D" W92097W (SILVER)

No progress to report.

Workshop

The pair of wagon wheels that received flats last June have been stripped of old paint and painted up in rust inhibitor. These will eventually make their way to the wheel lathe for turning.

Getting Stuck into the Gresley

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

Toplight window frame fitting continues well, with the halfway point almost there. All four of the frames along the seaward side are now fitted into place, with three of these also with their sliding lights fitted.

London North Eastern Railway 1938 Brake Third Open E16631E (GOLD)

A brief visit to the Ecclesbourne Valley was made last week and progress on 16631 was able to be glimpsed. I use the word "glimpsed" as the coach was visible during a quick tour around their shed on other business, so 16631 was not the main focus. It was however an exciting preview of what is in store for the future.

London North Eastern Railway 1937 Restaurant Buffet E9128E (BRONZE)

With our normally operational buffet car in the shed at Weybourne as well, it is worth repeating that no less than three members of the future LNER mainline set are currently being worked on, great news for pre-nationalisation fans! 9128 has been a flurry of activity over the past fortnight as we are under pressure to return to vehicle to service, owing to the fact that 35148's longer-than-anticipated overhaul has pushed 9128 out of the closed season and into the 2024 cream tea calendar. We have therefore halted all paid staff work on most other projects and directed maximum resource to the repairs found to be required on 9128.

The roof repairs have been going well with a lot of treatment and filling of any weaker looking areas of the canvas to seal it before water gets the chance to penetrate through to the interior. The majority of these are now complete and the focus now is on the ends where the canvas meets the corridor connections, areas that have been found to be poorer than the rest of the roof. Some wood is being spliced into these areas and rotten material removed and replaced. It is planned that these areas will soon be completed which will allow us to repaint the roof.

The carriage boards that fix onto the roof have been removed and cleaned as best and gently as we can, which is quite a challenge as these are getting to be in poor condition. There is not enough time during this overhaul to repaint them, so they will be revarnished and do one last tour in service which will finish them off!

The two corridor ends have also seen a lot of work with the teak end panels patched in several areas at both ends. The beauty of the ends being painted and not varnished is that we can now join and patch and fill over the repairs which will give a seamless finish without the costly and more skillful joints required if it were a varnished vehicle. This has allowed the ends to progress as quickly as the roof has. The Holt end is now complete and ready for painting, whilst the Sheringham end, which needed a whole replacement vertical panel fitted, is slightly behind but still almost done. Some new beading has been fitted over the replacement panel and all screws and joins filled. Removed electrical connections have been refitted but without their outer cover bowls.

Moving onto the sides, the seaward was by far the better of the two, so this is much further ahead than the landward. The entire woodwork has been rubbed down ready for repainting, and two localised areas of rot chipped out and patched. Just one section of beading had rotted on this side so this has been chopped out and a replacement section spliced in and primed. The good fortune of this side has allowed it to become the first area to be made ready for repainting, so a start has now been made on this. The upper section has now been undercoated and the first 1/4 glossed.

The landward side has had the split paneling round the kitchen area stripped out and the wood below dried out and primed ready for replacement with aluminum composite panels, repeating the process done six years ago to the lower (red) panels. The new panel has now arrived so may even be fitted next week.

The remainder of the side has seen much removal of chipped and water damaged paint along the upper panels, which are struggling now in certain areas. A lot of beading had also taken on water on this side and has been chopped out and is being replaced and painted up. The high resource allocation has however ensured that this work has been swift so beading repairs are now all done, so it won't be too long before this side is also brought to the stage where painting can start.

The interior is now seeing some electrical maintenance and rationalisation that was not possible whilst in service. The last few years in service has given us a better idea of which electrical systems are (or aren't) useful. A broken UV water sterilizer light in the kitchen has been replaced and tested out OK. The 110V lighting in the saloon has been converted to run on 240V as opposed to the 110V previously. This means we now only have 240V and 12V lighting on board, rather than the previous three voltages. We intend to swap the bulbs for LED ones before 9128 returns to service to reduce the load on the generator allowing more power to be used for kitchen equipment. We have also removed some complicated detection systems which had been stealing a large amount of power from the generator, something we can ill afford now because the power needed to run the Cream Tea services is greater than what was envisaged when the coach was re-restored some years ago to operate as a simple buffet counter.

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

Arrangements are being made to resume contract welding works to the Holt end and more steelwork for the sides is being ordered.

British Railways 1957 Class 101 Railcar Driving Trailer Composite Lavatory E56062 (SILVER)

Work on the cab front continues with paint being applied around the window apertures in readiness for the refitting of the windscreens.

Restored battery box doors, already completed some time ago on the landward side, are now being replicated for a second time in order to do the seawards side.

British Railways 1954 13 Ton Pipe Open B740918

No progress to report.

British Railways (GWR Design) 1958 "Fruit D" W92097W (SILVER)

No progress to report.

Workshop

The latest upholstery project, a large station bench, is now nearing completion with renewed cushions and armrests being finished on the previously restored framework.

M35148 Returns to Service

After a period of twelve months undergoing overhaul, we are pleased to say that Mark 1 BSK(D) M35148 has been returned to traffic, which also means we are now back up to full strength for brake vehicles for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

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

Window frame fitting continues with another one well progressed. The passenger door woodwork sanding, staining and varnishing has also done well with more layers applied meaning they are starting to look rather smart now.

London North Eastern Railway 1938 Brake Third Open E16631E (GOLD)

The leading man of LS Engineering made another visit to us this week, to discuss the timescales for the vehicle's completion of contracted works and delivery to the railway. This is of course not a "return to the railway" given 16631 is a new acquisition. It has not graced NNR metals yet. Given the vast majority of us have never set eyes on 16631 yet it will be very exciting to see the vehicle in the flesh as it were.

London North Eastern Railway 1937 Restaurant Buffet E9128E (BRONZE)

With 35148 completed and returned to traffic (see below) we have taken this buffet car in for much needed repairs and a repaint, which amounts to a Bronze level overhaul. 9128 was the only member of our proposed five-strong LNER Mainline set to be restored and in traffic, so its removal means that three of the five members of this development are being worked on at the same time!

9128 was pulled from traffic a year early (originally planned to be repainted over winter 2024/25) owing to concerns raised about its condition and vulnerability. The wooden structure and canvas roof, when compared with its Mark 1 steel built counterparts, was seen as too much of a risk to push the vehicle "beyond its sell by date". So when paint fade, split paneling and evidence of water ingress was spotted, 9128 queue jumped a Mark 1 so that we could get to it in time before more costly damage was done.

We tackled mechanical works first, with the first job undertaken being the removal of the failed generator that expired towards the end of the Santa Specials last year. This was replaced with another generator that had failed previously on the vehicle, but had been reconditioned and repaired in the workshop over the winter. It has been reconnected and tested successfully.

9128 then entered the works in the gap vacated by 35148. It was immediately lifted off its bogies allowing us to dismantle the Holt end bogie and replace the two worn out wheelsets with two that had been removed from the vehicle earlier in the year and reprofiled in the lathe.

We also took the opportunity to replace the oil splasher seals in the axle boxes as access to these is impossible with the axles in the bogies. A good inspection and oil round of sections of the bogie hard to access with the body on followed before we lowered the body back down and remade all connections.

With mechanics complete, 9128 was moved into the staging area for the top-to-bottom refresh to commence. The roof has been thoroughly inspected and around two dozen areas of compromised canvas identified. Luckily, most of these are split paint with the bottom canvas layer intact, so will be a minor inconvenience. A few areas require a bit more attention with some canvas patching required. The worst area is a corner on the Sheringham end which was letting a large amount of water to track down into the framework and paneling on the end of the vehicle. This has sadly written off one vertical panel at that end. The old panel has been removed, in pieces, and the area behind now left for a while to dry out. A spare side panel from a donor vehicle which is split in half has been selected and can be cut down to size to replace this end panel nicely, so the end will remain consistent and teak paneled.

The rest of the coach ends have been chipped of any loose paint which was starting to hold water against the paneling. This has been dug back to solid paint and is also drying out before we prep it for repainting. At the Holt end, things are better but a small hole has been punched through a panel, so this will be cut out and spliced.

The bodysides appear in similar, mixed, shape with a few holes appearing here and there on the upper panels which are still timber. The lower aluminum panels are in contrast still pristine and have simply been lightly sanded ready for gloss paint. A test panel at the Holt end on the seaward side has been glossed to see how it will look. We have decided two coats of gloss are required on the lower red panels.

Rubbing down of the upper cream panels is now ongoing with a good effort being pout in already. There are far more fiddly bits in this area all round the windows so will take longer than the red sections. Several sections of the new beading fitted in 2018 have sadly taken on water and been reduced to mush. These areas have been identified and are being removed for replacement.

One section of upper paneling on the landward side where the kitchen is located was found to be worse than everywhere else, so these have been completely stripped off, along with all associated beading. The plan here, given it is a large 8 foot section, is a sheet of aluminum composite similar to the lower panels will be let in and then the beading refitted.

The interior is not planned to receive a great deal of attention, however one item that has been attended to is the fitting of "First Class" signage to the passenger windows, to try and raise the appeal of the vehicle as passengers are currently avoiding it!

As readers can see, a large amount of work has been done to 9128 in just a matter of days as we are heavily prioritising the vehicle given its importance to the catering operation.

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

Talks are currently ongoing to resume the contract major welding works to the carriage ends. The final (toilet) window has also been stripped down and all old screws holding the glass in place removed and cleaned up.

British Railways 1958 Brake Corridor Second M35148 (SILVER)

Works to complete the vehicle were progressed last week - thanks to Richard Coleman who took a series of photographs covering the final days of preparations before we rolled the coach out of the shed.

Finishing touches to the outside included removal of all masking tape, painting of guards handrails and refitting of the polished passenger handles.

Small items like bolt heads and bump stops were also picked out in their various colours.

On the inside, the floor in the accessible saloon was deep cleaned following a year of workshop abuse and residual muck from its latter days in service. The colour of the floor changed from black to blue!

The remainder of the coach was treated to a fresh coat of green floor paint, which was the final task and one which we wanted to do last so that no footprints appeared in it whilst the paint was soft.

Numerous other snagging jobs were also done but they are too great in number to list! The coach was finally ready and taken from the workshop and placed into the main running set in time to debut at the Closure of the Line Anniversary event.

British Railways 1957 Class 101 Railcar Driving Trailer Composite Lavatory E56062 (SILVER)

No progress to report.

British Railways 1954 13 Ton Pipe Open B740918

A series of splits and holes have been cleared out and filled on the landward side.

British Railways (GWR Design) 1958 "Fruit D" W92097W (SILVER)

The team are still progressing with replacement timber and priming as they go along...

Maintenance

C Exams are now, by and large, finally over so we return to monthly A exams and rectification of faults as they come along now that we are running daily again.