London North Eastern Railway 1950 Brake Corridor Third E1866 (GOLD)
Work has been steady with existing tasks being moved along. More investigations to the leaking vacuum system have been traced to leaks in joints in the main steel pipe itself, which is unfortunate but at least something has been found as the vacuum was leaking away slowly. Inside the vehicle, the window units continue to receive finishing attention as have the two passenger doors. Newly varnished planking in the lower part of the door has been fitted on the landward side and looks very nice.
London North Eastern Railway 1938 Brake Third Open E16631E (GOLD)
No progress to report, though it expected that a further image update is due shortly to update us all on the contractor’s progress.
British Railways 1961 Brake First Open (Kitchen) M14021 (GOLD)
This has been a major focus of attention recently with a push being had on some fairly major tasks. The project to rebuild the guards compartment and adjacent corridor has progressed in leaps and bounds with bodywork renewal on the landward side fully completed, which has included two doorways, hanging one of the doors, renewal of all of the floor supports and the fitting of new floor boarding.
Work has now moved over to the seaward side which requires similar treatment. The outside requires stabilising so that the floors can provide a solid working platform to then restore the remainder of the interior and continue building things back up.
Two of the “floating” bulkhead walls are now back down on proper supports again which is a good sign the interior rebuild is starting.
At the other end of the vehicle, the rot in the floors was found to be more advanced than first thought, so the vestibule-to-saloon bulkhead has had to be removed as well so the vestibule is temporarily missing as an entity, the end of the vehicle becoming onw big stripped out shell!
With all walls out, a lot of the floor has been taken up and the tops of the main chassis cleaned up and protected. Floor bearers are all being renewed at the ends where required to strengthen them back up before we again look at refitting flooring.
It is likely we will remove the old toilet water tank from the roof before this end is reassembled.
The outside of the vehicle at the Holt end of the passenger saloon is also being looked at at the same time, with the lower “skirt” being chopped off to repair lower frame sections prior to welding a new skirt back on. Some areas will be replaced entirely below the window with new sheet steel.
All in all a very intensive period of repair on the vehicle at the present time, which can hopefully continue.
British Railways 1959 Tourist Second Open M4843 (BRONZE)
The remedial attention to the seaward side to prepare for correcting the faded and chipping has been completed so the upper body is now ready for painting.
Inside the coach, all of the lower seat bases have been rotated around from one side of the coach to the other to give some of them a rest from the sun side. The lower door cards have been refixed to the aluminium door frame castings as many of them were hanging around loose. They have also been re-varnished whilst we have the opportunity.
We also lifted the coach off its bogies so that we could change several cracked bogie bolster springs, but unfortunately the spring plank has been found to be seized, preventing us from taking it apart at the moment. We are having a re-think and will have a second attempt after we have explored the best ways of forcing these components apart!
British Railways 1957 Class 101 Railcar Driving Trailer Composite Lavatory E56062 (SILVER)
Along with 14021, this vehicle has seen a push forwards of late with the exterior painting progressing well. The priming and undercoating of the whole vehicle has now been completed and the roof painting is also complete.
Gloss painting has now started although this week it has proven difficult with temperatures too high for painting of large panels.
Gloss painting of the cab interior also continues to progress.
British Railways 1954 13 Ton Pipe Open B740918
The remainder of the brake works to the vehicle have now been completed with all of the flexible hoses and couplings now back onto the vehicle. The system has also been tested successfully, so after many years with an isolated vacuum cylinder, the wagon can finally re-join the braked “fitted” group of BR wagons.
The wagon will shortly be moving to Holt where the remainder of the upper body repairs and repainting work is due to be completed.
British Railways (GWR Design) 1958 “Fruit D” W92097W (SILVER)
The Fruit D is almost complete, again the team have had to rely on good weather, which they do not seem to get on the Tuesday’s and Thursday’s they volunteer!
Brian is concentrating on the lettering. Final checks will take place before it is released to traffic, the aim is still completion by July end!
Workshop
Fabrication of some new buckeye coupling release bars to supplement the existing stock is now complete with them being painted this week. These bars will be used by shunters to split Mark 1’s and other coaches joined by buckeye couplers.
