Carriage & Wagon Works News

LCDR No.51 - SECR No.3360
Restoration and conversion as a carriage able to carry passengers in wheelchairs

A mock-up of the planned alterations is shown on the right, by adapting a photo of LCDR 114. Please note that the colour of the coach shown is not intended to be accurate, but simply to give an impression of the planned layout of the windows in the saloon area.

Having been voted funding for the project by "The People's Millions", part of the Big Lottery Fund, work started on the project once the carriage was moved into the shed in the New Year. The intention is to convert the brake area and adjacent compartment into a small saloon, using the double-doors to provide wheelchair access. The two compartments at the north end of the vehicle will be restored to original condition. In line with the long-term plan for the Bluebell's LCDR carriages, it is to be restored in the SECR lake livery to match our SECR P-Class locomotives.

Dave Clarke's fotopic site features the overhaul of this carriage in further detail.

7 February 2010

This week saw a major advance, with further stripping of the vehicle and the first repairs undertaken. Dave Clarke's photos and report cover the work undertaken.

Further paint striping of the eastern side with hot air guns and paint stripper has revealed a paint sequence down through the layers, from domestic green and cream, through early SR green, late SECR brown, and possibly two layers of crimson lake. Also included within this sequence are a series of undercoats.

The SE east corner pillar revealed tantalising glimpses of straw yellow and vermillion lining to the lower of the two crimson lake coats. This was echoed on Door V which has been fully stripped. As a result, a paintakingly careful stripping of door IV has revealed the crimson lake and lining in its glory, as seen in these two photos.

Each of the three layers of the ventilator bonnet was painted with adjacent lines of straw yellow and vermillion. The same was also revealed on the door styles and cross members surrounding the bonnet and droplight. A ¹/2" straw yellow line was applied to the crimson lake ¹/4" from the edge before the outer edge was then over painted with a ¹/8" vermillion line (leaving a ³/8" straw line).

There are several key tasks to be undertaken during 3360's restoration, of which repairing the northern end is probably the major one. This end had been removed after the coach has been grounded as part of a house, in a order to extend the size of the room comprising the two compartments. The original end was placed further away from the coach and new wall sections inserted to extend the length of the room. On recovery in 2003 the original end section was recovered and brought to the Railway inside the coach body.

On the removed end, both ends of the three horizontal frame members and the lower ends of the five verticals had been cut close to the tenons. In order to ascertain what repairs were required the end framing, which had been shorn of its cladding last week, was offered up to the hole.

A gap was found between the corner pillars and the end of the ends of the frame work. Measurement of the vehicle showed that the external width across the brake end and the remaining partition was 8'. However across the north end it was 97¹/2". The spreading of the corner pillars had also seen a drop of about 1 to 1¹/2" in the centre of the roof. A couple of acro props were used to gently ease up the last two roof hoops and a clamp applied across the corner pillars to bring them back to 96".

The gap between the corner pillars and the ends of the three horizontal members of the end frame was then measured so that new extensions could be made. These are in the form of a cross, the two ends of which form tenons; one for the door pillar and a second for the frame member.

With the end still supported in place, the two screws securing each joint holding the three horizontals in place were removed - most came out without too much bother. After a little heat they all came out with only one breaking off.

The remaining frame work was then removed and four new extension plugs slotted into the corner pillars. The two beams were then dropped in place so that the "mortises" or slots cut in the ends of the cross members fitted around the "tenons".

By the end of Sunday, two horizontal members were back in place, together with the western most of the verticals. The joints are currently only held together by screws. In due course the new joints will also be stuck with a water repelling, expanding polyeurathane glue, and the ones into the corner pillars bedded in mastic (where the railways traditionally used a lead-based paste).

Short lengths of offcuts of teak have been machined up on the table router, to prototype the replacement body-side mouldings and the side-light (window) frames, to confirm that the cutters we already have are suitable. The required lengths will be run off once suitable teak boards are to hand.

The next jobs will be to continue refitting the northern framework, strip the remaining paint from the "quarterlight" face of the NE & NW corner pillars and the rebated roof hoop before the missing partition is fitted and while access is relatively easy!

31 January 2010

On 20th January, after the snow had abated, we were at last able to crane the body of LCDR coach No.51 onto its temporary underframe. Another underframe is to be shortenned to carry the coach. It is seen here next to our current pair of restored Victorian 4-wheel carriages, LCDR 114 and LBSCR 661.

As can be seen, the north end is missing, but was recovered along with the rest of the body back in 2003. The photos and details of work carried out to date are provided thanks to Dave Clarke.

Now that the coach has been brought into the north end of B road in the shed, work has begun on its restoration and transformation into SECR No.3360. Over the next year we hope to keep this page up to date with the progress being made on the conversion and restoration work.

Over the last week and a half the following work has been carried out:

The majority of the domestic modifications have been removed.

A start has been made with the hot air gun and paint stripper to remove the layers of paint from the lower east side exterior panels and the teak framing. Externally, the paint coats include domestic green and cream, SECR maroon and possibly varnish. Internally the frames were possibly varnished before receiving a thick white / cream base coat and scumbling. They were later painted blue and pink in domestic use.

The quarter-light (window) mouldings have been removed from the east side which has allowed the 1/4" thick glass to be removed.

The waist and upper body side panels have been removed. They will be replaced with marine ply or teak salvaged from the north end.

The cladding has been removed from the northern (compartment) end, the end which had been detatched when the house was extended in domestic use. Some of the external teak cladding will be saved for reuse later in the project. The stripped down north-end frame is seen above.

The NE corner bracket / strap has been removed. This involved the use of heat and a drill to cut the heads from the screws and coach bolts. They will need to be drilled out with a corer.

The interior teak panels of doors IV & V have been stripped. The doors are numbered around the coach from the SE corner and as a result the V is in the NE corner, VI the NW and X the SW door of the brake. Both IV & V have a large 3^RD visible on boards 2, 3 & 4 (numbered from the top). Board 1, below the garnish rail, is plain teak as are boards 5 - 7. On door IV boards 5 & 6 are softwood which suggests that the door was repaired following damaged in service. (It appears possible that the east side received a side swipe and consequent repair at some time in the coach's history.)

The softwood internal cladding around the quarter-lights has been removed (below) and will be replaced with new. Some of the brackets which strengthen the upper-body joints have been removed, grit-blasted and given two coats of primer. The photo also shows that some minor repairs are required to the adjacent corner pillar where the end had been removed, but generally the structure of the coach is in excellent condition.

Dave Clarke's fotopic site features the overhaul of this carriage in detail.