Rotting away?

See here about this coach underframe. https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/lms-45036-inspection-saloon.165378/

 

Another of @stuartreeder 's projects. Purchased approx Sept 2016, moved Feb 2017 to Tanat Valley Railway. Looking at the Facebook page, pretty much nothing has been done on it since. Again, I reckon in 5 years time it will still be in the same condition it is today.


Keith

 

the obvious thing to do is to find an orphan body.

 

I think that was suggested to Stuart previously, but he wants to rebuild it to it's original design...


Keith

 

that would involve skills pretty much ahead of the whole movement. Good as some restorers are, noones done that

 

Agreed it would be a serious challenge for anyone, but some stock restorations (thinking L&B among others) have come pretty damned close! We should keep in mind that the rail heritage movement has managed quite a few 'firsts' over the years, including a large proportion of jobs considered near to (or utterly) impossible not so long ago.

 

Please bear in mind that Stuart has moved the underframe to the Tanat Valley Railway which has no undercover facilities and no workshop I think that makes it an even taller order!

The 'group' is effectively just Stuart.


Keith

 

Not forgetting that Boston Lodge has built quite a few coaches and other vehicles from scratch, including underframes and bogies, both for the F&WHR, and for others like the Welshpool and Llanfair. Now I know that this is narrow gauge, but it is merely a difference of size (and weight), not of process.

But as @ghost has mentioned whilst I've been typing, there is a world of a difference between the likes of Boston Lodge (or Haven Street, Horsted Keynes, etc, etc) and a somewhat remote open-air siding with almost no facilities.

Steve B

 

building coaches is one thing, restoring them to original condition, with no datum points , is quite another.

 

You would need a very large area to set out the body full size if working traditionally. If using the latest CNC machines then everything could be done from cad. I have previous set out whole carriage sides, usually on several strips left over from 10' sheets of plywood.

Below is the setting out board for the entire end of a carriage, drawn out full size in two elevations on four 10' x 4' sheets of plywood.



The Next photo shows some detail of setting out for a new corridor partition, for which no drawing survives.


Any changes are sanded off and redrawn. Timbers are placed on the setting out and the positions of joints etc. are marked on to them from the setting out.

Sawdust.

 

Unfortunately this LMS coach represents an all too typical preservation story. I saw it myself briefly on my one and only trip to the Chinnor and princes risborough railway (probably around 14 years ago). Then it was as per the picture here http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=2597 ( ie perfectly doable) but neglect, no undercover shed to keep it in and vandals setting it on fire and now it is only a chassis, which is only good to go under another new body. Nobody realistically is ever going to build a totally new body from scratch. The amount of work needed would be incredible as would the cost.

This is the story of many a 'preserved' coach, they start off quite good, and then a combination of neglect, lack of a shed, lack of money, vandals, preservationists pulling it apart, arson and it ends up as a wreck, in this case only a chassis. The next step is the scrap man. What a shame but it is becoming typical. We all know of other coaches and wagons following the same path.

I saw this page here http://preserved.railcar.co.uk/56317.html about a railcar. It starts with Photos of it in use at the Gwili Railway in 1979 and quite smart then, then a series of sad photos of it getting worse and worse since as it was moved from railway to railway and owner to owner until eventually it was scrapped in 2016. It really showed to me and all too typical tale. The movement really needs to get to together and start building those vital carriage sheds to stop more and more of this.

Check out these two videos of perfectly good stuff 'preserved' being scrapped recently at Boness and Kinneil Steam Railway. Makes you wonder why ?

 

not preservation is it, especially that tank wagon which would look good in a demo freight. I guess they wanted the underframe for something else

 

Nice to see a proper valve radio providing entertainment in the workshop

 

The VCT entry might explain the fate of the RBR for you. http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=2687

An extract from the minutes of the MUSEUM AND ACQUISITIONS COMMITTEE a few years ago noted 'The aggregate length of all of the rolling stock on site at Bo’ness is about two and a half kilometres and clearly there is a need to adopt a realistic approach ' , and it is certainly true that Bo'ness is a site with very limited space, and a later set of minutes from the same committee suggests that disposals were put up for offer, but if nobody wants them what would you do. However I have to admit to some surprise over the tank wagon as I'm sure I have photographed it on a freight charter with Maude some years back but I have no idea what overall condition it was in at the time of scrapping.

As an SRPS member what I do find frustrating is that the space cleared by disposals from the collection seems to be quickly occupied by yet more ex mainline diesels ( duck for cover !), I've lost count of how many Class 37s are on site now.

 

That is absolutely horrific. That is not railway preservation. Why in god's name would you scrap that BP tanker wagon?

 

deleted

 

In the clip of the tank being cut.
At about the 18 second mark, is that perforated steel sheet just to the left of the torch head?
The cutter seems to speed through that section a few secs later.

 

Not "horrific" in anyway. There were (and still are) a number of tanker wagons on site at Bo'ness. Despite having 34,000sq ft of undercover museum exhibition space a recent review of the society collection deemed that, unsurprisingly, there is not room for everything on site whilst allowing the collection to expand. In accordance with society policy this tanker was offered for disposal to a good home, and the best, possibly only, offer made was by the group restoring the unique Prison Van who wanted the under frame to mount their body on. A very much unique vehicle now sits on an under frame: http://www.cs.vintagecarriagestrust.org/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=4938

As hinted above, the RBR was scrapped because the condition of the sole bar would not permit a return to operational condition. The coach was stripped of as many parts as possible before it was scrapped.

As for the diesels, the recent arrival of 37xxx (West Coast maroon - unsure of the number) is simply a donor loco for 37261 - the remains will be scrapped once the parts have been salvaged from the loco.

 

Badly corroded solebars are going to become an increasingly common occurrence unfortunately. I think RBR's suffer quite badly in this respect. I know of at least two others which have had problems on the kitchen corridor side.

Sawdust.

 

It is just as well that the Prison Van is only on static display ... that underframe and the wheel profiles were only passable for slow speed shunting (must see if I can find the images).
I know, I put the van on ...

PQR - on wheels par StoneRoad2013, on ipernity