NVR Wagon Group

The “Steam Freight” driving and shunting experience course is being held this Friday, 14th March – if you are quick there is still time (just!) to book to join us for this full-day experience course, which costs £370 per person and includes regular rotation between driver, fireman, guard and shunter roles.

Due to necessary repair work to 45337 which we had planned to use, the rostered locomotive is now BR Standard 5MT 73050, which is imminently due withdrawal from service for overhaul. This may be one of the last opportunities to sample this fine machine for some time.

To book, please see the official webpage here and/or call Wansford ticket office on 01780 784444.

A couple of work sessions in recent weeks have seen the drop-down ends reinstated on LMS CCT 37071, along with some of the associated ironwork which has been cleaned up, straightened out and painted.

Most of the internal ceiling has now also received a coat of primer, with about two bays remaining to be primed as seen here.

The coachbolts holding the body planking have now been fully tightened up and some of the ironmongery has been installed and primed as part of this process – the photo above is of one of the restraining pins that stops the drop-down end section opening of its own accord!

A good start has been made on the dummy side doors, with a packing structure made from salvaged timber installed to the bodyside, and a start made on final cladding with only a little more work required to complete. Unfortunately we have now run out of these cladding planks so cannot progress the remaining doors until a few more arrive, although there are plenty of other jobs to be going on with for a little while yet.

In recent weeks Wagon Group volunteer Philip has been focusing his attention on the ceiling of the van. After scraping all the old paint off and derusting the steel roof hoops, he has applied primer to about a third of the ceiling as seen here.

An alternative view through the new side doors of the area primed so far. (Photos courtesy of Philip Halstead).

Further to our previous update, we finished planking and bracing the doors. It’s amazing how much weight three short planks add!

The doors were offered up and fitted well enough to be installed on to the hinges. A cumbersome and awkward job, but fortunately it went right first time. Here we see the first door fitted, with the second about to be lifted up into place.

An interior view showing the pair of doors in place, showing the new bracing.

A shot at the end of the day, doors in place and securely fitted ready for final fettling.

Additionally, all the old flaking paint to the underside of the roof has now been scraped off – another job off the list. A good start has also been made on derusting and priming the roof hoops (approximately 25% completed so far).

Happy New Year to all followers of this website! 2014 promises to be an interesting year for the Wagon Group, which should see completion of LMS CCT 37071 at some point in the first half of the year, followed by some much quicker and easier wagon overhauls/restoration for the running rake thereafter.

A working session over the Christmas period allowed us to begin work on the side doors for 37071.

Measuring up the aperture and the previous doors meant we could build the frames in the luxurious space, light, and relative warmth of the carriage shed. This pair of doors will be the only openable doors on the vehicle, which means they need to be robustly constructed. Rather than going for full mortice and tenon joints we decided to drill and use glued dowels for the joints, due to time and effort required. Once braced up and fitted, these doors should be strong enough to withstand the expected levels of wear and tear.

We were able to use many of the offcuts from planking the van sides to begin infilling the panel. As can be seen, a few more planks are required to the bottom half before adding diagonal bracing to the rear of the doors, screwing through, and hanging them on the strap hinges that are still attached to the van. However we anticipate this will be an easier job than building the door frames seen above, which involved quite a lot of chisel work to provide the various recesses required. The doors on the other side (and the ends) will be dummies, constructed much more simply and built up in-situ on the van.

In the age of steam, goods yards across the nation rang with the sound of clanging couplings and the squeal of steel wheel on rail, as all manner of goods were distributed around Britain in almost as many wagons.

This has gone forever – or has it?

The Nene Valley Railway is offering a rare opportunity to relive the sights and sounds of a lost era, with a steam freight driving and shunting experience.

You can join up to 7 other participants on a full day course, to be held on Friday, 14th March 2014. You will be tutored in, and then get the opportunity to get hands-on, with all aspects of running a steam-hauled freight train.

Over the course of the day there will be two main activities for the participants, with frequent rotation during the day so that everyone has an equal experience of each task:

Loco Crew

Two participants at a time will take turns at driving and firing a large locomotive under instruction of a qualified Driver and Fireman. The group will be given a tutorial during the short classroom part at the beginning of the day in how a locomotive works, the controls, and the duties of the driver and fireman.

Guard/Shunter

You will learn, and then put into practice, the role of Shunter and Guard for a freight train. During the classroom session you will learn about marshalling a train, equipment, hand signals, flags, colour lights, and the duties of a freight Guard.

After these introductory tutorials, the group will then have the opportunity to marshall the goods wagons and drive return journeys between Wansford and Peterborough with the assembled freight train, with various stops en-route. During the day, you will also get to visit the historic Wansford signal box to learn about the general principals of signalling, block working, staffs, tokens and how to operate a typical mechanical signal box.

The allocated locomotive is Stanier ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0, No.45337.

This is a full day event, with an approximate duration from 9.00am until 6.00pm. The price of the Steam Freight experience is £370 per participant. Unlike normal NVR services, advanced booking is essential – for further details please call 01780 784444. If you are purchasing the course as a gift, a gift certificate for this experience will be sent to you after booking for presentation to the lucky recipient. Perhaps the ideal last-minute Christmas present?

Guests are welcome to join participants to watch, take photographs and to join the participant for meals, but they will not be able to ride on a train.

Profits are to go to the NVR Wagon Group, to enable restoration of more of the goods wagons based on the railway.

The Official webpage can be found here:

http://www.nvr.org.uk/freight-driver-experience

A relatively short website update this week, in direct contrast to the number of hours worked and the difficulty of the job completed. Further to the previous update, the roof has now received its new canvas.

The canvas laid out on the roof, ready to be rolled back for the bonding solution to be applied directly to the roof boards. Being a very large area and heavy, inflexible fabric, this is quite a task even to get it to this stage.

The canvas was rolled back, one (longitudinal) half of the roof at a time, then bonding solution was applied before the canvas was laid back down on top of it. We did our best to stretch out any creases, but the sheer area of the roof and less than ideal working conditions made this difficult. Seen from ground level at the end of the day, the edges will be trimmed and folded round as necessary once the bonding solution has had a chance to dry out and adhere a little. Whilst not perfect, we’re reasonably happy with the result, but mostly pleased that this large and long-outstanding job is now completed.

The moment of truth… the time had come to strip off the old roofing felt and see what state the timber boards were in underneath. From the underside of the roof we weren’t expecting any horror stories, but as with any restoration, you never know what you’ve got until things are stripped down to a bare state. Fortunately no rot was lurking in this area where the felt had come away.

Going…

…going…

…gone!

We were delighted to find the roof timbers in excellent condition which means repairs will not be necessary before installing the new canvas, saving time and cost. The photo above is somewhat misleading, as this is a big area which somehow looks a lot smaller in photographic form!

In parallel with this work, Philip has been working hard on the interior, scraping the old flaking paint off the underside of the roof prior to painting – he has prepared approximately two-thirds of the area so far.

It is planned to hold another working session very shortly to install the new canvas before winter. Once the roof is laid and painted (many, many times), the back of this rather large project is well and truly broken, with only doors, painting, and internal jobs left to complete.

The CCT continues to make progress in the shed. With recent working sessions being concentrated on planking the body sides, the sheer bulk of this van is now beginning to re-emerge.

During the Diesel Gala in mid-October, we completed planking the north side. The planks were primed before installation, to be followed by undercoat and topcoat after completion of the roof (we don’t want to spoil the finish by dripping roof paint down the sides). It may also be seen that the north side of the chassis has now received black underframe gloss paint.

A closer view of the north side; note we have blanked over the central side doors to provide greater structural integrity at this point, where the top rail structural timber has been repaired as part of this restoration. Dummy doors will be installed over the blank panel in the centre, so externally there will be no visual difference.

Work also progressed on planking the southern side, although since this photo, the whole side has now been completed. As is just about discernible in this shot, an effort has been made to start scraping back the old flaking paint to the interior of the roof (top right).

An interior shot of the new NVR sauna, before the bottom planks were installed. The partition wall has been constructed to one side of the central double doors, to create a separate store room. This wall serves to brace the top rail structural repair work mentioned earlier (the new structural timber cut into the old top rail can be seen in situ behind the bare studwork, prior to cladding).

Further to our teaser photo last week, here is the finished replica BR wagon sheet in use at the Autumn Steam Gala on shock-absorbing open wagon B721890, which retains its original tarpaulin bar.

More side planking has been installed on LMS CCT 37071, although there is plenty more to go!

The eastern headstock and the southern side of the chassis has also been painted in underframe black topcoat.

With CCT 37071 taking up all our time this year (it’s a BIG wagon!) progress has been a little disappointing on the running fleet front. However here is a teaser photo of a side project completed yesterday, that will accentuate the goods rake and help provide protection from the elements for one lucky wagon… can you guess what it is yet?

Hopefully it will be in place at the NVR Steam Gala this weekend (all credit to Tim Hobman for both the photo and the precise signwriting!)

Apologies for the lack of updates in recent weeks; I have not visited the railway for some time and a shoulder injury has prevented me making any working visits. However there should hopefully be some further progress to report very soon, so watch this space!