Farewell 15997

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, but time has been in short supply of late.

Midland Railway (later M&GN) 1886 6 Wheel Picnic Saloon 3 (BRONZE)

Completion is just days away with the finishing touches being made to the lining.

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

Trimming and finishing works to the side paneling of the main passenger saloon continues.

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

Exterior painting continues with a recent focus on the upper (cream) half. Beading and panels have received further coats and are now finished up to gloss.

London North Eastern Railway 1945 Gangwayed Brake E70621E (SILVER)

This vehicle has progressed very well having been the recent lead project for volunteers. The remaining rotten timber has been removed from the bodysides including the blanks for the top row of windows and the cantrail strips that held down the edges of the original canvas roof cover. With the rather rotten windows underneath revealed, these have been brushed down and stabilised before being primed to match the rest of the vehicle.

With the entire exterior now in primer, two coats of red protective gloss have been applied, mainly by visiting corporate groups. The sides and ends are therefore now ready for cladding in Aluminium Composite Panels shortly. In readiness for cladding, all the surviving fittings such as door bump stops and lighting cable connectors have also been stripped off the body. These will all be refitted after the cladding is complete.

Work has started on the two inward opening guards doors. These are receiving more attention than the other doors as having been screwed shut and out of use for many years are required to become the main entry points. So far they have been eased out of their frames and now open/shut again, and the smashed droplight window has been dismantled out of one of them and measured up for new glass to be made for it. The work to these doors has been assigned to a single volunteer who all being well will steadily continue with them till they are completed.

The underframe is now cosmetically complete, with black gloss also being applied all round by corporate volunteers. Remaining underframe work will now be confined to returning a few missing components and the recommissioning of the brake system.

The interior is being somewhat saved until the weather turns later in the year rendering exterior work impossible, so remains unchanged from the previous update.

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

The Holt end storage cupboard and associated saloon bulkhead continues to be worked on steadily.

British Railways 1958 Covered Carriage Truck M94125 (SILVER)

At the last update, around 50% of the steelwork bodyside and end repair work had been completed. The remaining 50% has now been treated, with work to the Holt end (and roof) being tackled before the landward side, which was actually the worst side of all, with all three windows requiring very invasive attention.

With all the rotten areas cut out, treated and repaired with new metal framework and skin, the window apertures which are being returned as windows have had their respective panes of glass refitted and resealed.

The two windows at the Sheringham end are having louvre air vents fitted where the glass used to be, to a sympathetic design that can easily be reversed back to glazing in the future when required. The new louvre units, produced externally, have now arrived and look great.

With welding work complete, filling and body prep sanding is now in full swing and is due to be completed quickly, owing to the straight sided design of the CCT and its short length. It should not be too long before the main painting of the vehicle commences.

Moving onto the doors, six out of the eight bodyside doors have been through the "door hospital" for repairs, removal of old rivetted patches and tidying up to make sure they are safe for use (e.g. some handrails had corroded and were pulling away from the doors). These have been quickly refitted to the vehicle. The final two are now in the process of being similarly repaired.

The Sheringham end doors are gently being repaired and adjusted so they open/close effectively and have received corrosion and wood repairs and new bolt fixings as part of this process. It shouldn't be too long before these are finished and can be painted.

Finally, the new generator which will be installed into 94125 to power the dining train has been ordered from the supplier.

British Railways 1957 Corridor Second W25189 (REPAIR)

The first round of steam heat repairs have been completed on this vehicle which was returned to traffic for the Mixed Traction Gala in mid June.

The new steam pipe duly arrived and was shaped and fitted to cure the holes around the central water drain and further down above the Sheringham end bogies where holes had been discovered.

Unfortunately a further couple of leaks were discovered during a test after the vehicle had returned to service, so we will have to return to this job in order to finish it before winter.

British Railways 1957 Corridor Composite M15997 

Our long-term stored Corridor Composite, 15997, has now left the railway for pastures new. Built in July 1957 from Wolverton works, M15997 was a typical vehicle of its type with four first class compartments and three second class compartments. Having run its entire life on the Midland Region first in Maroon and then in Blue & Grey livery, it was withdrawn in June 1981 and transferred to the Doncaster Works test train with the new identity of ADB977054 where it was used as dead-weight for overhauled locomotives emerging from the works to haul under test. The windows were plated over and the vehicle painted plain blue for this purpose. After just over a decade, final withdrawal came in September 1992 and the coach selected for preservation on the North Norfolk, arriving in 1994.

Despite the drastic appearance of the plated windows, the coach was in much better condition than it looked, and the original plan was for it to be quickly repaired and put into service. Sadly the resources were not available at the time to manage this and the coach kept in storage "to be done one day". Alas, multiple administrations (including ours!) failed to get 15997 to the top of the restoration queue, and in the intervening 30 years of outside storage, the condition of the coach fell to the point where restoration, whilst remaining completely possible, would be a much greater task than would have been in 1994.

By early 2020 the coach had become tantalisingly close to being considered for restoration, as the major dining train, suburban set and quad art projects had all been completed and every Mark 1 on the railway was either in use or in the workshop being overhauled. 15997 was on track for possible salvation by the mid 2020's. Sadly the effective stopping of the constant overhaul cycle during the Covid Pandemic for two years led to four other coaches deteriorating unexpectedly quickly and being withdrawn from traffic and put into storage, throwing 15997 from first in the queue to fifth almost overnight.

After allowing the effects of the Covid stoppage to subside for several years, so as to be sure, 15997 was recently reviewed again. With regret, it was concluded that with the new reduced volunteer landscape, the increasing ages of all the carriage fleet, and the required capacity required of the coach fleet going forwards, 15997 didn't fit into the future strategy, so was offered for sale. With no takers, an exchange deal (see below) was in time agreed upon, concluding with us bidding a fond farewell to "the one that got away" from us!

We wish the new owners all the best with 15997 and we are keeping our fingers crossed that one day, they can restore 15997 to service and we can visit for a ride!

British Railways 1959 Metro Cammell Railcar Driving Motor Composite Lavatory E51505 (BRONZE)

The railway welcomed a new Class 101 railcar vehicle onto the books, powercar 51505, to further build resilience in the fleet. It is in remarkably good order considering the time it has spent in storage and should be resurrected for service relatively quickly by a joint taskforce of Loco and C&W members.

The vehicle has some interior issues and a roof that is leaking in several places so requires an urgent (Bronze level) period of attention so that the job of keeping it in reasonable order does not grow massively in the future due to water damage!

This blog won't cover the mechanical works as it is outside our scope, but within a few days of arrival the exterior had received a good wash down which transformed its appearance greatly and showed that the paintwork is still very reasonable in its colour and not faded - as the photo shows, far too good to repaint you could even say!

The bogies and underframe equipment have also received a jet wash down and a coat of black paint to spruce it all up, partly with the help once again of a corporate volunteer group.

Maintenance

Rolling reupholstery work continues inside TSO NN3868, along with the steady stream of mid-season examinations.

Workshop

The second and third phases of the project to tidy up Weybourne Yard has been completed, with an area to the side of the C&W Shed that is on lower ground to the rest of the site (known as "Dingley Dell") being cleared out and steadily restacked with Diesel Spares.

This has in turn allowed a large strip of land alongside our main access road to be emptied and levelled in readiness for laying a track panel to house spare carriage bogies, which are currently stacked on the ground elsewhere and look unsightly.

On the subject of bogies, we have received a pair of spare "B4" type Mark 1 coach bogies as we did not possess any ourselves. These were exchanged for the CK coach (see above) and will strengthen our long term spares position. These bogies will ultimately live on the bogie track panel being prepared at Weybourne.