Preservation Report February 2011

Time seems to have flown since my last preservation report, and at first glance it seems we have not progressed very far since then. This is partly because of the holiday season when one or more of us are away (most often myself I must admit), and partly due to the bad weather in November, and December. Mostly however I believe this is because we are now at a stage with motor coach '87 at Acton where we are finishing off a number of small and unspectacular tasks, working towards being able to run the coach on the East Kent Railway. Work on '87 is now concentrating on three areas: finishing off the passenger areas, repainting the guard's van, and refitting components and repainting in the driver's cab.

Taking the passenger areas first, the edging around the ceiling in the vestibules has now been fitted, and the ceilings repainted. The colour used on the ceilings is gardenia the name coming I believe from a flower. We have had a certain amount of this paint for many years left over from when the saloon ceilings were painted, which was probably about ten years ago now, and probably some was used on ‘201 before its move to Horsted Keynes. Needless to say there was no longer any useable quantity remaining when we wanted to do the vestibules. These specialist paints are very expensive to buy, and so we have taken some advice from volunteers in the EPB group. What they have done is to get paint mixed up at B&Q or Homebase using either a code or the name of the colour, in this case just the name "Gardenia" was sufficient. The resulting mix appears to be a near perfect match, so close in fact that we have even been able to retouch a few patches in the main saloon.

One further job has been to give another couple of coats of varnish to those panels in the saloons and vestibules which are still original and which inevitably looked a bit tired in comparison to the newer replacements. These areas were sanded off and where necessary some filler was used. One of the main problems was de lamination of the veneer around the edges of the veneered plywood inside the vestibules, we tackled this by brushing glue under the lifted veneer, then nailing a block of wood over the top to hold it in place while the glue dried. A piece of plastic sheet (old carrier bag) under the wooden block, stopped the block from sticking on top, and when the nails were removed it only remained to fill the nail holes and the veneer could then be re varnished.

Another problem was graffiti scratched on some panels, this also proved easier than we feared to fix, the graffiti along with all the old varnish was sanded away completely. A coat of dark wood stain was then applied and finally a coat of clear varnish finished the job.

We now consider the passenger area to be complete apart from a few areas that require a bit of "prettying up". It is always apparent that as the general standard improves, the remaining items which we believed were all right, start to look a bit dowdy. One such area is the luggage racks, the wire mesh is rusty and the bronze framework is tarnished. We have been slowly removing these and taking them away to be restored; once they have been dismantled, the mesh is then wire brushed and repainted, and the frame cleaned up with wire wool. To date we have completed those in the smaller rear saloon but still need to tackle the other saloon.

Turning to the guard's compartment, the ceiling has now been painted in undercoat, we decided to paint all the pipe work (conduits) in the ceiling the same colour, previously these had been black. Roughly half of the sides in the compartment have also been painted in undercoat.

Inside the guard's compartment are two battery compartments. These are situated along the front bulkhead adjacent to the driver's cab. Each compartment has a door which is hinged at the bottom, and which can therefore fold down to form a tray that the batteries can be slid onto to receive attention. Over the years the hinges have rusted and swollen which prevented the doors closing. The top one was not too bad and some attention from an angle grinder along the top of the door frame has now enabled it to close satisfactorily. The lower door however was in a worse state and removal was the only solution. The hinges are screwed into the metal frame surrounding the door but the rust was so bad that these had to be drilled out. The hinges were beyond repair and we are indebted to Bill Emmett for making new ones for us. The door remains to be refitted but, this should be a straight forward operation as the hinges can now be screwed back into the wooden frame under the metal framework.

The floor of the guard's compartment has had a number of cracks for as long as I can remember and these are a particular nuisance during the open days when large numbers of people are walking on it. The construction of the floor as many of you will know consists of corrugated iron sheeting laid across the steel under frame with a composition rather like cement poured on the top. We have now chipped up the broken areas, painted the corrugated iron with rust paint and finished it off with sharp cement, this should now only require repainting in red along with the rest of the floor.

Work continues also on the drivers cab. The seat has been removed and taken away for recovering. We would like to do it in the red coloured boomerang material, the same as the seats in the rear saloon but the only material we have is on spare seat backs stored in one of the other coaches at Shepherds Well, we have not had a chance to go and get any yet and we are also a bit loathe to destroy a good seat back. It is possible therefore that we may instead use a grey material.

We have now made the decision that we will prepare the coach for haulage and consequently not spend effort on refurbishing the electrical gear. The controller and the electrical equipment in the cupboards behind the driver's seat will not receive any attention, components will simply be replaced ready for the day when we are able to consider running under our own power. There are however a number of items which do have to be restored to working order, the driver's safety device (dead man's handle) has to operate, so the controller has been reconnected to the brake line, a whistle has been fitted, and we are in the process of connecting this to the air supply. The air horns have been removed and the recesses in the ceiling where they were mounted are being plated over. Other than this the cab is now almost completely repainted, a semi gloss green covers the whole of the driver's side. The second man's side which would be open to passengers when the front gangway was open, is mostly the same shade of green, but it will have the standard gardenia ceiling, the same as in the passenger saloons and guard's compartment.

We are hoping that this interior work will be complete in just a few months, and we then want to move onto painting the exterior. The management of the London's Transport museum depot have indicated that it would be acceptable for us to rub down and repaint the coach while it is inside the museum hall, but not in the position where it is currently sited, we may have to wait a while until the coach is moved before we can start this next stage therefore.

On the subject of painting the exterior, we are committed to the rather light shade of green which was in use in the late 1950's, which anyone who has visited Acton or seen photos of '87 will know. However we may or may not retain the small yellow warning panel (which I must say I rather like), equally we could fit either the original or later BR Lion and Wheel emblem. It would be interesting to know what the preferences of the membership are for the warning panel and emblem. Please write or e mail and let us know, I can't promise we will necessarily follow the majority view (rather like the contest to name the Blue Peter cat on television a few years ago) but we will certainly listen if there is a strong preference.

A more immediate concern to us currently in the preservation team is the need to move the remaining stores from the Woodpax yard at Sheffield Park, to our new containers at Shepherd's Well. Once this is complete the stores will be a lot safer and better protected, also the group will see a marked drop in expenditure. We have made two trips but several more will still be required.

Finally we have been having some discussions about the future of coach ‘201 at Horsted Keynes. We are doing just the bare minimum at present to keep it in an acceptable condition because we don't have enough effort to do otherwise. However we have been considering the possibility of getting some work done professionally, this option may become more of a possibility if our cash reserves start to grow once we have moved our stores. Looking into the more distant future we may one day have two motor coaches in running order, - a unit in its own right. Preserving an EMU is a very long term project but if we stick at it, I am sure we will one day have a working unit.