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.
