Southern Electric Group 4Cor unit 3142 Preservation Report 13

4 COR Preservation Report Summer 2003

Our work in these last few months has been overshadowed to a large extent by the impending move from St Leonards. It became clear from around March that at least 3 of our 5 coaches would have to be moved out. This is because St Leonards Railway Engineering Limited. have won the contract to service and stable the new class 170 diesel units which will run on the marsh link to Ashford. This means of course they are no longer able to fit in so many preserved vehicles, and have been forced to ask us to move these coaches out. The opportunity to move the unit to West Worthing as part of the proposed Southern Electric Railway museum has therefore come along at a very good time. There is a snag however, West Worthing may well not be available for a couple of years or so, because South Central are using it for temporary storage of new units which await entry into service until the power supplies have been upgraded. Unfortunately we need to remove at least three cars from St Leonards by the end of this year.

We have been concerned therefore to get the coaches which we have not been working on, into a fit state to move. In particular the motor coach S11201 was in need of attention, the outer gangway and compressor having been removed to use on S11187.

The compressor for S11201 has been lying on a pallet under the coach for a year or two because the “irons” (angle iron supports) on which it rests, had been borrowed to use for the compressor on S11187 whose own irons were missing.

Fortunately some sets of irons have recently become available from Sub, de-icers which were going for scrap at Immingham, and we are very grateful to Bob Baines who collected these for us while on a trip to obtain some other parts for the EPB unit which they are of course restoring on the East Kent Railway. We have now been able therefore to jack the compressor up into position, slide the new irons into place and bolt the complete assembly together.

The front gangway for this car (i.e. that at the driver’s end) has been lying alongside on the ground for as long as I can remember, it is in fact the one which originally came form S11187 the original from ’201 having been refurbished and fitted to ’187.

These gangways when complete are pretty heavy and so we hauled it up into position using a block and tackle suspended on a bar resting on the gangway supports, this proved quite difficult to get into position but eventually we managed to get the first bolt in and the remaining five then went in quite easily. We have not yet sealed it up properly, it must be removed again when we get round to restoring the coach properly, however it is at least all back in one piece. Once in place however we did at least give it a coat of green paint , and were pleasantly surprised by the results. It is now very tempting to repaint the front end of ’187 in green also.

In addition to getting ’201 ready to move, motor coach S11187 has still taken up the bulk of our time, the train end fittings in particular. I mentioned the inner and outer gangway shrouds last time which we were in the process of stripping and painting, these have now been re hung but some welding was required to repair the bottom edges of each. The canvas bellows which fit between these two shrouds is too bad to refit, but we have got hold of a more modern one to replace it. This one is thinner and more flexible, being made of a plastic material rather than the heavy painted canvas of the original. There is only one problem with this in that it was cut away from the coach to which it was originally fitted using a Stanley knife, meaning that the end segment must be replaced, we are still scratching our heads over how to repair this.

As an aside it turns out that the gangway was made by the Spencer Moulton company, who also made the very substantial buffers fitted to the Cor (even those between cars in the set). This gangway is unlike most other types in that the outer shroud is permanently bolted to that of the next car, thus creating a more robust structure, the Cors like all EMUs were designed for hard work. The gangway floor has also now been replaced, this must obviously be strong yet flexible and this function is provided by the trestle plate shown in Figure 1. This is formed of a grid of steel bars running along and across, pivoted at each joint, not an easy job to de rust and paint especially when one considers the risk of getting fingers caught in between.

The junction boxes on the inner end of the coach are in the process of being refitted, the top ones on each side carry the lighting circuits, the two lower boxes carry the control lines, the two lighting boxes are linked by a conduit running over the top of the gangway, and the control boxes are linked similarly. There is obviously not much room to run conduits across the coach in this position, therefore the lighting boxes do not bolt directly on the back of the coach but have wooden blocks fitted underneath, this allows the conduit running between these two top boxes to overlap that which runs between the two lower boxes. These wooden blocks which were split have also been replaced with new wood.

The supply to the lighting boxes runs in a conduit almost the full length of the coach from the guards compartment. This conduit must be removed as a part of stripping the roof, and has now been disconnected and lowered to the ground on ropes in one piece.

The interior of the junction boxes does in fact require a great deal of care to refurbish. Figure 2 shows the construction of a typical box, fitted inside each one is a paxolin block which has the terminals bolted to it, 4 for the lighting boxes and 12 for the control boxes which have thinner gauge wire. The paxolin on several of the boxes had crumbled quite badly, luckily we had some spares which we collected from the Brighton Belle car at Stewarts Lane. All the nuts and bolts have also been cleaned up. The slot shown in the lid takes a gasket, the original was made of cord which was presumably impregnated with something to provide a good seal. This seal is now rock solid unfortunately and not able to fulfil its purpose we are therefore replacing this with strips of thick rubber.

Work on the roof is also continuing, the old canvas and bitumen is still being stripped. By the beginning of September the centre part of the roof was clear, with about one third of each side part (the area with thinner planking) also clear. The original estimate to finish this work by the end of the year looks about right. The very hot weather we had in the summer has made the job “interesting” as the bitumen melts it becomes easier to pull the old canvas off, but the soft warm bitumen keeps clogging the plane, which then smears the black mess over the wood which has just been planed.

Fitted on either side of the roof are brackets which hold the destination boards, and in the space between these brackets are metal strips about six inches wide whose purpose appears to protect the canvas from damage by the destination boards. This benefit of these strips has however been lost because the last time the roof was repaired the canvas was fitted over the top of it! Underneath these strips the original canvas can be seen, this is about 0.9 mm thick, very much thicker than that the 0.4 mm material we are currently stripping off. The disadvantage of this thinner material is that as the roof flexes it tends to stretch and split around the joints between the planks. Our replacement canvas will be much more like the original.

Another of the fittings we have had to remove while stripping the roof is the periscope. This device consists of a 45 degree mirror set behind a window, another mirror being fitted on the desk below to enable the guard to look out backwards along the train i.e. away from the driver's cab. We have discussed before the relative merits of pneumatic and electric wind screen wipers, but it is clear that the guard did not have the luxury of any such labour saving aid for clearing the periscope window, a handle was provided for him to raise and lower which dragged a wiper blade up and down. The external part of the wiper has long since been removed, only the handle and some of the mechanism remains. The wiper mechanism is obviously difficult to keep water tight, and leaks from this appear to have caused the rotting which I have described previously to the roof support on the bulkhead between the guards compartment and front vestibule. We have therefore decided to seal the periscope up completely once it is replaced, and remove all the windscreen wiper linkage. As an aside the 2 Bil 2090 which was until recently berthed alongside us at St Leonards had two periscopes one looking forwards the other back. The Cors appeared to have only ever had one, it is difficult to imagine how much the guard could have seen along the length of the train, but presumably the Health and Safety Executive of the day were convinced of its value.

Some other jobs under way currently are cleaning and repainting the controller, this is all in good condition with the wiring looking almost new, I will describe this in more detail at a later date. The draw hook on the train end is also being repainted ready to refit.

We are now within sight of completing the outside of this car, and while at the time of writing we are unclear when or where we will go from St Leonards, there is some possibility of ’187 going on public display, while we continue restoring a second car. This we hope will stimulate more interest in the project, not to mention donations.