April News Part 2

 It was great to see trains running again this week, reminding us that the carrying of passengers in our vehicles is what our department is all about!

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

Work on the interior wiring continues, with further boxing in of the forest of wires inside the guards compartment, which is now almost completed.

With such progress on the interior, along with a further relaxing of volunteer restrictions allowing us to bring back some more individuals who are waiting in the wings to return, the next larger task on E1866 has been started: preparation work and repairs to the exterior. This had previously been limited with the vehicle being accommodated outside, but with M&GN 129 now completed and E1866 permanently indoors, a proper start on the exterior can be made. An initial rub down (sand) of the existing paintwork along the bodysides has been undertaken, initially along the seaward side, revealing further work required.

One of the main areas of concern was the corrosion and lifting of the four angle strips which screw onto the four corners of the coach. Not an ideal design, but a feature of the Thompson exterior. These strips had presumably not been on for very long, the coach having had much restoration work under its previous ownership at Llangollen, so somewhat surprisingly they require doing again. The two at the saloon (Holt) end have so far been removed.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

This vehicle continues to move towards interior completion, with more glass cleaning work being undertaken to remove several years worth of workshop activity. The luggage van area has now become the first section to be declared ready for service, with all of the finishing touches added. The final task was the painting of the floor, after which we locked the doors to allow a prolonged period of people not stepping on it and give the paint chance to harden.

Moving down the vehicle, the guards area has seen a large amount of "bitty" work, with many items of mainly emergency equipment being prepared for it. We have recently withdrawn brake coach GE21103 from service, so the emergency equipment from this vehicle has been used for E21224. Additionally, previously mainline registered brake M81033, the ticket for which has now lapsed, has given up its "Network Rail only" equipment to E21224, which is a direct replacement for it (in terms of mainline operation). In combination, this gives us 90% of the equipment needed to fully furnish E21224. A lot of the items were not looking their best, so they have cleaned up and are currently in the process of being repainted.

A repair has also been undertaken to the air pipework that feeds the air brake gauge in the guards van which completes this area. The repaired pipes have now been painted black, and the emergency air brake valve painted red.

For the first time, we wish to have a Mark 1 service set brake with all of the emergency equipment properly stowed on clips and brackets. Before now, various items had been added in over the years and were just placed in various corners of the guards compartment with no official home. We have given all the items of equipment some thought and have also re-sited a few other items so that hopefully the full kit can be kept in a much more neat fashion. This has required many home-made brackets and straps and these have also joined the pile of items to be painted before fitting.

Inside the passenger areas, all of the transfers and signage has been fitted warning passengers about the alarm chains etc and showing the first class and non-smoking compartments. In addition, missing supports for some of the seats have been made from scratch as the originals had somehow got lost during the restoration.

We are now getting to a stage where we won't be able to progress the interior much further until the lino contractors have been in and laid the flooring, which will happen next month.

British Railways 1957 Mark 1 Tourist Second Open E4641 (BRONZE)

With Covid restrictions beginning to ease the time has now come to move on from having one NNR funded vehicle in for overhaul work increased to two, which will be further expanded again in due course back up to our original status of having three projects. E4641 has been waiting for a paintwork freshen up for almost two years now, having been unfortunately damaged by cleaning products. The opportunity is being taken to go one step further than patch painting the damaged areas, and apply a "top up" coat to the rest of the coach, hopefully restoring it to its 2016 shine which is when it had its Gold standard major overhaul. Whilst in it will receive any interior repairs required: however given its relatively recent overhaul and the fact it is our best TSO vehicle, we are not expecting to find much to have to improve.

It has yet to enter the shed, however the sunny weather has allowed the lower half of the bodysides (the red portion of the Crimson/Cream livery) to be lightly rubbed down in readiness for one coat of gloss. Doing this will mean the coach can go immediately into the staging area and no bending down was required for the first rubbing down!

It is expected for this coach to feature more in forthcoming updates.

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

Work continues on the wagons down at Holt (more of which below!) - I was reminded recently by one of the team down there that the state of some of the wagons is looking quite sad, so whilst they don't earn the railway any money, it is essential if they are not going to be lost that the volunteer teams are able to do their work to keep the wagons looking smart.

The SR brakevan continues to progress at a pace, with all of the remaining exterior paintwork, noticeably that on the ceiling of the verandahs, now heat-gunned off and sanded as required.

Further rotten wood from the verandah ends is now all removed with a cutting list being formed in order to replace all of the bits that have been removed! All the rust has been removed from metalwork and coated with rust inhibitor.

Hopefully next week should see the start of painting the cleaned up areas along with the roof repairs.

British Railways 1958 3 Ton AF Container AF65970B

The eye catching "Bird's Eye" container in the goods set never had its full sign-writing completed when it was launched into traffic back in March 2015. Whilst it had the all important bird on the side, there were various instructions underneath which there wasn't time to complete. The quiet nature of the closed railway finally allowed these missing items to be added. The container is rather green at present due to the effects of the weather, but with the relevant areas washed off the new lettering was able to be added. 

Maintenance

The final two vehicles from the main A set, Mark 1 BSK W35148 & Suburban CL E43041, were tripped back to Sheringham very soon after the last update, and took their place in the "A set" for the restarting of services on April 12th.

The next pair of vehicles to Weybourne are what will be the two spare vehicles for "B set" and "A set" for the main season. One was E4641 (already covered above) and the other was Corridor Second W25189, which is becoming a "boomerang coach" as it seems to be repeatedly coming back to Weybourne for issues to be resolved. W25189 was back this time for three or four reasons.

At one end the buckeye coupling was found to be worn, and this has now been changed for a good example removed off E4641 (which incidentally is having its good buckeyes removed so that others suitable for mainline running can be fitted instead).

At the same (Sheringham) end of the coach, the floor in the vestibule was found to be holed with some areas of lino either collapsed in the corner or bulging upwards. This is a symptom of historical water ingress from rotten steelwork which we repaired in 2019, however at the time we didn't do any work to the wooden floor or lino. The floor is currently receiving targeted repairs and we are trying to disturb as little as possible, rather like keyhole surgery!

At the opposite (Holt) end of the coach, the drawhook was also worn and has been dismantled and swapped out for one of our last good ones in stores.

Work remaining on W25189 involves examination of a possible wheel flat and the completion of the flooring repairs, after which it will be returned to Sheringham and will give up its place in the shed for E4641.

Elsewhere on the railway the Quad set & LNER Pigeon van were extracted out of Bridge Road sheds for a day fro door lock exams and lubrication underneath, to ready them for occasional use during the 2021 season. It has been decided the Quad set cannot do another intensive season similar to 2020 but will work on around a dozen days to allow other sets to be dropped out for a day or two during the high summer for exams to be done. The work went well with just one Quad door lock causing trouble and having to be removed for overhaul in the workshop.

April News Part 1

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

Work on the interior wiring continues. Where this all centralised inside the guards compartment there is now a large additional piece of trunking added to accommodate it all, the ends having been terminated accordingly.

Inside the passenger saloons, although not immediately visible many crimp connections have been made around the area to allow the fitting of the various lighting fittings in the future.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The exterior is now completed, with all "finishing touches" made. Items such as the cast end data panel have been fitted into place and various emergency items painted red, raised lettering picked out white etc. We can now concentrate solely on the interior, and indeed the remainder of the underneath work once the vehicle is removed from the staging area. The final exterior task was cleaning up all the window glass, cutting off the excess paint and then further cleaning and polishing to make them shine.

All of the internal components mentioned last update have been fitted, so the luggage area in particular is now looking almost complete. The locking bars for the luggage doors, associated door chains and final chalk boards have all been fitted, as have the porcelain lighting fittings which was the final piece in the ceiling jigsaw.

The sliding doors for the caged area are now also back in place. These were originally from sister BCK 21103 (currently in service), stripped out many years ago but found to be in more complete condition than 21224's doors. Never throw anything away!

Inside the guards van, all of the missing face-plates for the electrical boxes have been restored, painted and fitted.

Also painted is the vacuum pipe, emergency valve, guards seat base and handbrake wheel/pedestal.

 

Various hooks and brackets have also been picked out in black, which contrasts nicely against the cream walls. The vacuum and air brake gauges have been fitted to this area and look very smart. The guards van is further behind the luggage area but is catching up.

Inside the passenger areas, the doors have now all been numbered (a requirement for mainline running) and two of them have had their check straps fitted so they can't open further than they should do. Another day has been spent on fitting the compartment reading lights, but further work is required before they are finished.

Inside the toilet, a few items such as mirrors have been fitted to the wall, and unsightly holes in the Formica have been gently filled and painted cream to try and hide them. We are fairly limited as to how much further we can go in the toilet, until the flooring is laid and the contractors fit the vax-o-bog 5000 to allow us to enter the 21st century!

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

The upper verandah ends have now been rebuilt with the new galvanised skin at Weybourne.

The holy stove pipe has also been sleeved, and repaired externally, to fix the obvious issue it had. This has been painted up in heat proof silver and, along with the verandah ends, awaits dispatch back to Holt to team Bedell, Maynard & Turl.

Maintenance

Composite Lavatory E43041 is now complete again, the vacuum cylinder having been overhauled (successfully after several false starts) and refitted to the vehicle. The footboards have been repainted on the vehicle whist it has been with us and some repairs made to the upholstery, in particular the first class armrests which were suffering. Some required door lock repairs have also been made. The coach is now ready for service and is awaiting the completion of W35148 before they are tripped back to Sheringham to take part in the railway's first passenger trains on the 12th.

Corridor Brake Second W35148 has now had the failed drawhook and buckeye coupling on the Sheringham end replaced with spares from stock. Like E43041, the footboards have also been repainted to spruce them up during the coach's stay, and a temporary repair has been made to the vacuum valve underneath the handbrake which prevents drivers getting vacuum brakes when the handbrake is applied. The vehicle is now also complete and awaiting a return to Sheringham.

The plan is for these two vehicles to be swapped with two more: one of which will be the designated spare vehicle for the proposed train to be used from April 12th ("A" set) and the second will be the first open coach to see attention for some time, which will prove to be a multi purpose coach to be used potentially in both ordinary and dining trains a little later this season (all being well).

Workshop

The agricultural jack is now finished, by the look of it. I forgot to take a photograph, and will try and include one next time, but it looks very nice painted up in brown and green.

March News Part 2

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

No progress to report.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The signwriting on the outside of the vehicle has now been completed. Outstanding items since the last update included the remainder of the corridor end data and the underframe lettering. Aside from the normal historic and NNR required lettering and symbols, including the "Emergency Lighting Point" and brake release chord stars, extra mainline registered features have been applied on this coach, such as wheel profile markings on the bogie and an arrow on one corner of the vehicle which acts an an aid to identifying components for maintenance and exam, such as wheels and doors.

The opportunity of the vehicle being out of the staging allowed for the new batteries to be fitted. These have a higher rating than many of the batteries fitted to several other coaches, hopefully this will help to power the new toilet which is due to be fitted, along with longer lighting life given this coach is due to run on a reasonable number of after-dark services.

With lining and lettering completed, E21224 was returned to the staging area for yet another rub down and application of the final coat: varnish. This has sealed in all the previous work and the repaint is now officially concluded.

Attention has since turned to the exterior "trimmings". The full length handrails have been bolted into place on the guards doors, and the brass grab handles fitted to the four passenger doors.

More components including the locking bars for the luggage door mechanisms and the original BR cast end data panel (now officially superseded by the "mainline data panel" but its nice to have it on anyway for historic interest) are currently on the bench receiving a final top coat of black paint before fitting. The job list for the exterior of the vehicle is now virtually exhausted so the focus through the spring will be on the interior.

Speaking of the interior, the troublesome vestibule ceilings continue to require fettling: some beading previously thought to be complete has required more minor work this week. The four vestibule lighting units have been finished off, sprayed silver and fitted into place.

The work to fit the internal woodwork and panelling to the four doors has progressed well, with the remaining three doors fitted out. One was missing a single component so an un-restored example had to be extracted from spares and rubbed down and varnish built up on it, which has delayed the completion of the doors. Such is life when dealing with restoration! Additionally, after the woodwork was first fitted two doors have had problems with the wood interfering with the operation of the sliding droplight windows, so again more dismantling and modifications were required.  

Also being restored are some rails/bars associated with the guards and luggage areas.

The flooring contractors made a third visit to see the coach to finalise their details for laying the lino flooring. We hope for this to be fitted very soon so the interior can be progressed further.

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

Everyone's favourite Holt based solicitors firm, Bedell, Maynard & Turl, have been progressing the Southern Guards Van in their socially distanced emporium. The main theme continues to be "stripping down" with the Sheringham end verandah wall now removed as this will require total replacement. It was suffering the usual wood rot in the areas near the floor where water sits, but also had issues half way up and had already been spliced up all the way up one side, using a solid piece of wood with grooves cut into it to fool people into thinking it was planked!

Some other timber has also been removed including one of the roof planks.

More of the exterior (which is being retained) has been rubbed down ready for repainting in due course, including the Holt end cabin wall.

The corroded stove pipe and upper verandah ends which were dispatched to Weybourne are being worked on separately. The corroded steel skin is being replaced with new galvanised material, these new pieces having been cut out now and are shortly to be reattached to the original framework, which has been retained. The latter has been cleaned down and is now being repainted.

Maintenance

Brake Third E43357 received the remainder of its floorboard and guards floor coats of paint, completing the cosmetic maintenance tasks. In addition to this, the unreliable handbrake protection valve (which stops the train brakes being released when the handbrake is on) has had a temporary repair made to improve it for this year until the valves can be re-engineered with better springs; a side project which has encountered pandemic caused delays. The coach was returned to Sheringham to join two other suburbans so we now have three of our five coaches ready for the railway's relaunch on April 12th.

Composite Lavatory E43041 is the next in line at Weybourne to be repaired. This vehicle only needs a vacuum cylinder overhauling to make it serviceable again. The naughty cylinder has been removed, stripped down and components overhauled. By the end of the week an attempt to reassemble it has been made but alignment problems were encountered rendering success elusive.

Corridor Brake Second W35148 remains inside the workshop for drawhook and buckeye coupling replacements, however it is still awaiting manpower to undertake these tasks. In the meantime, some additional work tidying up the footboards has been undertaken with them now looking much smarter in undercoat black (gloss to follow).

Meanwhile at Sheringham the C examinations are all but complete on the main "A set" which is required for the 12th April. All that really remains is the full set to be formed up (once the repairs above have been completed) and final tasks signed off and the set is ready to roll. Discussions are currently underway around the boardroom tables as to which vehicles will form the second "B set" for hopeful use in the summer when the railway hopes to be in a position to start steadily increasing operations. It will be a long and steady road moving from the April single train service back up to something resembling full capability.

Workshop

As suggested last time, the agricultural jack for the museum has progressed greatly. A large lump of new timber has been cut to an interesting pear shape and hollowed out to accommodate the screw mechanism. Much of the ironwork has now been returned to the wooden "core" and it is currently back together and awaits treating, painting and finishing.

March News Part 1

We have been pleased to hear that the railway plans to reopen on the 12th April which will hopefully be the end of this lockdown malarkey. The railway will be reopening on a staged basis in accordance with the infamous road map and the initial carriage requirement will be for one 5 coach compartment set. This will be the suburban 4 set with the disabled converted corridor brake on the end.

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

Back in the workshop the Thompson saloon has been handed back to the volunteers, with work on the electrical system and cleaning up the sliding window frames continuing. The latter is now complete and very nice they look too.

British Railways 1959 Brake Corridor Composite E21224 (GOLD)

The lettering and lining has dominated the progress on the outside of the vehicle. Shortly after our last update, the upper lining was completed which necessitated a shunt in the shed to extract E21224 from the staging (E1866 taking its place) so that access could be improved to apply the lower lining below the windows. This was quickly completed and the next stage was the lettering on the red bodysides. This includes the vehicle's number, "Guard" and "1" markings on several doors along with a "Load 1 Ton Distributed" in each corner of the luggage areas. Theses are gold with a black border so it was decided to get these out of the way first before moving onto the single colour lettering.

With the numbering complete (it is really nice to see the coach at long last get its unique identity back) the block lettering has now been started, and is currently still in progress. So far, the end lettering at the Holt end has been completed and the solebars have received a final coat of black gloss to pep them up ready for the underframe lettering next week. This remains to be started, along with all the end lettering for the Sheringham end.

At the same time as the exterior finishing work, the inside also continues to progress, albeit in a slightly less glittery manner. The vestibule ceilings have received more beading and have been second coated, so we have reached the milestone of all the ceilings throughout the whole vehicle being fully painted, with just a few lights left to install.

Much of this week has been spend further sanding and filling the floors, which sadly were deemed not quite smooth enough when the flooring contractors were assessing the vehicle ready to fit the replacement lino. This has now been completed and we are now awaiting also for the contractors to return and fit the new flooring, which will be another major milestone in the reassembly.

The final area of interior achievement has been the fitting out of the internal paneling on the first of four passenger doors. This has, in the main, gone together very well; as much of the vanished woodwork was already ready having been restored in the past few years and stored. There have been some issues with levels towards the bottom which had to be overcome - a consequence of matching door cards from other vehicles onto doors from different ones!

British Railways (SR Design) 1948 25 Ton Brakevan 55167

The biggest surprise recently has been the M&GN Society's mechanism to bring some volunteers back whilst maintaining the social distancing limits at Weybourne. They have set up a small base at Holt and three volunteers are to progress wagon restoration separately for the foreseeable future. This has had the unexpected bonus of some "low priority" work being able to be considered/progressed. Rather than a new dawn, the scheme is actually a resumption of a previous group who undertook mid life overhaul and repaints to the LMS brakevan and tank wagons in the goods set. 

Their latest target is the Southern Railway brake 55167, which was another vehicle which was showing disappointing levels of degradation following a full strip down overhaul at Weybourne not too long ago. Water ingress, wood rot and peeling paint had made it a sorry sight, and it has been on the list to do for a few years now. It has now been brought into their restoration tent and a strip down rapidly progressed. The side doors, roof vents and stove pipes have been removed allowing the failed roof felting to be stripped off revealing the planked wooden roof below.

The two end verandah panels have been removed and sent to Weybourne for repair, as these are metal and have corroded.

A hole has also been found in the stove pipe!

A reasonable amount of the peeling paint has been stripped back off the wooden sides to ready it for treatment and repainting.

Maintenance

With repairs to Suburban Third W46139 completed, it was taken back down to Sheringham with the Class 08 and swapped for another two vehicles: Suburban Composite Lavatory E43041 and the disabled brake W35148.

The former is for a vacuum cylinder overhaul with the latter having failed drawhook and buckeye couplings. Neither have been started yet but the footboards on both of them, plus Brake Third E43357 have all received some parch repainting work just to improve their appearance and longevity.

Whilst at Sheringham a big sort out was had of the sets down there. It was remarkable just how mixed up everything was but after six hours we had rough operating sets formed into each of the three platforms. Apparently ever lever in the signalbox was pulled during the shunt except one, quite an achievement! The reforming makes it easier for the rest of the exams to be undertaken pre-opening, and also aids the dropping off and picking up of the remaining vehicles that need to go to/from Weybourne for the repairs. It will also be easier for the operating department to form the sets prior to April 12th - win win win!

Staying at Sheringham, the slow grind of the C examinations continues with a day of wheelset measurements just the latest item to report from a long list of checks.

Back at Weybourne the vacuum cylinder has been refitted to Brake Third E43357 so it won't be long before this one is ready to return to service.

The guards van floor repaint is now also completed with a minor modification made to one of the floor drains to make it removable - strange as this sounds this will aid the future fitting of equipment for the Norfolk Lights Trains.

Workshop

The clocking in machine has now been reassembled and the next project, a vintage (possibly agricultural) jack, has been started. This was donated just before the pandemic and is a nice item despite not being railway.The large wooden "body" of the jack is rotten so will be replaced, with all the ironmongery being transferred across - making it a semi-replica. It will live on however and avoids the bonfire in spirit.