Southern Electric Group 4Cor unit 3142 Preservation Report 5

4 COR Preservation Report Winter 1999

From my last article you may remember that we were making good progress on the “blind” side of the power car 11187 repanelling of the side being nearly complete. Sure enough we have finished the side of the saloons but have hit a snag on the side of the guards compartment.

The guards compartment lies right above the power bogie behind the drivers cab. The construction of this area over the bogie includes steel plates running the full width of the vehicle on top of the steel sole bars and directly underneath of the timber main bearers which form the lower edge of the coach side. On this side of the vehicle the edges of these steel plates are quite badly rusted, as always with rusting steel it expands, which has resulted in the main bearer being lifted and a split has formed along the length of the bearer. This has rather halted our progress for the time being while we wait for some more informed opinions on the best way to solve the problem. It is quite possible that the main bearer may have to be cut right away, and the composition floor cut back also, to enable the steel plate underneath to be repaired. Finally a new section of main bearer will be required. To date with earlier repairs we have only fixed patches to the existing bearer, so the replacement of a complete section is a rather more ambitious project.

The front end of the car is as described previously almost completely refurbished, apart from the power receptacle which had been damaged during cleaning. As luck would have it we have found another receptacle amongst our stock of goodies. A few missing components for this have also been replaced from the parts recovered from the Brighton Belle car at Stewarts lane. The new receptacle has been repainted and we are now almost ready to refit it.

The next part of the car requiring our attention was the train end i.e. the back end opposite the drivers cab. The construction of this end is shown in Figures 1 and 2. Rust was very apparent at the bottom end of both side panels and under the lobster pots. Lobster pots are the nickname for the brass covers over the ends of the communication cord. Linkage is present from both of these to the air release valve to the side of the gangway, if the cord is pulled this valve releases air to partly apply the brakes. Our first inclination was to add patches to the rusted sections, removing part of the corner strip and lifting the panel away at the bottom. This enabled the outer lower brackets, which were rusted almost completely away, to be replaced. However when it became apparent that the edges of the panels were also badly rusted under the brass corner strip, we decide that rather more drastic action would be required so both end panels were removed and also the buffers, this being necessary in order to get at the brackets on the inner lower corners of the side panels. The buffers are held on by only four bolts albeit very tight ones, and removal was achieved by lifting them off with a fork lift truck.

The way was then clear to weld proper patches into the panels and thoroughly rust proof the edges. These panels are both very tall (approximately 8 feet), considering this to be too big to take away the first one was welded on site at St Leonards, however it is surprising what will go into a car if you have a mind to, and the second one I managed to take away to weld at home, a very pleasant way of spending the long Christmas holiday. The first side is now back in place we have used stainless steel screws for the corner. We had first started doing this along the tops of the side panels under the cant rails.

The jumper boxes on the train end form the semi-permanent connections to the next car in the unit. Jumpers for lighting, control and power direct from the live rail are present on both sides of the car. Typically only one side would be connected to the next car. The wiring inside the control boxes is in a very bad state the insulation having gone very brittle and all of this must be rewired completely. The other items fitted on the end are gradually being cleaned and repainted ready to go back up when the second panel is also refitted.

The gangway itself has not yet received any attention, the fabric bellows are complete but with some splitting at the top end and the whole thing is very stiff. The gangway supports have not been shown in Figure 1 as there is insufficient room, perhaps in a future article I will devote some more time to them. These supports have been removed and some work started. The steel loops which link together as part of the structure have worn to about half of their original thickness and have had to be built up by welding. Clearly we have been forced to take much more trouble on the less glamorous train end of the car than the outer end because it was in much worse condition.

One stroke of luck to have come our way has been the discovery that the Severn Valley Railway has a number of 4 Cor saloon seats in its possession. These seats are of no use to them and they were willing to let us have them. It must be borne in mind that of the two saloons in the car the rear one had been completely stripped out while on the Nene Valley line. We believe that at one time there was a plan to convert the carriage to a cafe.

Resulting from this two of the team Bob Burrows and Graham Cornell hired a van and made the trip up to Kidderminster to pick up as many as they could, the group made a donation to the Severn Valley Railway in return. The seats are believed to have come originally from stock laid up awaiting disposal at Micheldever. The seats are in very nice condition and are covered in what I believe is called “boomerang” style fabric, obviously older than the grey BR style on the rest of the seats. There are still more available at Kidderminster and there should be enough for one saloon but not enough to completely refit the entire coach. Although we are not ready to start the internal work for a while yet, we could not resist fitting one of them to see how it looked, the effect is certainly very pleasing.

There are several other areas of work which we are engaged on at odd times, one of these which I have mentioned in a previous article involves the motor generator (MG). Cor units in common with other express stock were fitted with these devices, one per power car. An MG consists basically of a motor running off the rail voltage coupled to a generator which provides 70 volts dc to run the auxiliaries (motor controls etc.) and lighting. Suburban and semi-fast stock was not in general fitted with these, low voltage being derived from a potentiometer i.e. just resistors to drop 750 volts down to 70. This rather inefficient sounding arrangement is fitted for example to the Bil units and this difference means that Bil and Cor units could not run together in their original condition. However we are hoping to get a 3 phase supply laid in at the depot which when rectified will provide sufficient voltage to run up the MG in 11187. Rewiring of the lighting circuits in the saloons has already been started ready to have the lighting ready when the MG is running.

The windows are another area to which we have recently started devoting some attention. the saloons have seven seating bays i.e. fourteen windows in total. Only four of these have their glass intact, some having been broken before we even started but a fair number have been broken during removal of the frames which was necessary to replace body panels. We have two spare panes probably obtained under an earlier insurance claim following vandalism. These have a safety mark BS 6206 and are probably therefore more acceptable for future passenger carrying use. I have done some investigation of the different types of glass, there are basically three different types:

• The first is plate glass which is standard float glass as used for domestic windows, this is what was originally fitted but of course will break into great jagged lumps on impact.

• The second type is toughened glass, this starts life exactly the same as the first type but after cutting it is sent away for heat treatment, the end result is like the old type car windscreens which will craze and break into small pieces if broken, we believe that 1950’s vintage vehicles are fitted with this.

• The third and best type is the laminated type like modern car windscreens, this is also marked to BS6206 mentioned above, this number may only be an indication of glass quality and not related to its structure. Looking at the edge of this it is clear that it is made up of a sandwich of two thin (approximately 3 mm thick) glass sheets with a layer of plastic in the middle, this is apparently much stronger than the other types, the same approach is I believe used to build up armour plate for tanks.

It has been decided on cost grounds to retain all the existing glass for the present. Replacements for the remaining eight panes will almost certainly be toughened, laminated being considered less suitable because it is too tough, it cannot be smashed to enable passengers to escape!. The difference in cost is not that great, the estimates I have had suggest that each sheet would cost about £35 for plate glass, £45 for toughened and about £50 for laminated. Obviously this still represents a significant expense for the group. At present we have taken two windows away to work on, I will keep you informed of progress in a later article. Of course nobody can tell us with any degree of certainty what types of glass are acceptable for main line running. We would still be pleased to hear from anyone who has more knowledge on the subject.

The roof is another area on which we are still considering the best way ahead. I said last time that a plastic type tarpaulin was the most likely method to use. Since then however we have been warned by people doing similar restorations on the Bluebell railway, that this is not the best approach as it is likely to crack at low temperatures. Consequently canvass impregnated with linseed oil is the current favourite, this is more labour intensive but at least we do already have canvass.

Rather a miscellany for the report this time which is due I believe to the fact that up to now timber frame and body panels have tended to dominate. This outer skin work is now coming just a bit closer to completion and we can turn our attention to the variety of other problems.