SECR Birdcage brake K&ESR 61

For those of you who like to follow our vintage coaches, our SECR birdcage brake is in the process of sheding its BR Crimsen livery and will soon re appear in lined out SECR maroon, to match the other Chatham vehicles in the rake. As far am i am aware, there are not any other larger chatham vehicles, other than our family saloon, that are in this livery, thebluebell's being in Southern Green.
In addition repairs on our District 100, are on going, it has required a lot of new wood to be let in, a new roof and top rail,and apart from the bottom build rail which has been part replaced an entire new side, recent information has come to light that shows that it was originally a 1st class coach, so with this new information we are going to re upholster it as a 4 compartment first, we are working in close cooperation with the london transport museum with a view of it being availible for the district line celibrations and should look good matched with their met coach.

 

After a lot of effort by the C&W team , the birdcage has had its first gloss coat on one side, and it looks superb, the deep red looks very very good, The ammount of preperation that has had to be done has to believed, so far its been taken down to the bare wood, all screw holes re filled, then the wood given a coat of resin to seal it from damp ingres, then given a etch primer, 3 undercoats, each rubbed back till smooth, and will have 2 top coats be fully lined out, then 2 coats of varnish, I think this will be the best we have managed on a vintage vehicle so far, its all down to the skill of everyone involved, once lined out i will see if i can get some photos put on line, my input on this has been to help in the rubbing down and on the roof, which so far has taken 3 undercoats andwill have 2 top coats, its needed more work, because we have gone from a grey finish to a white finish, and to ensure you don't get bleed through it needs more coats. but it really is a team effort,
The Distict coach has made slow progress, the replacement roofing sections are now nearly complete,and attension is now turning to repairing the top rail on the other side as this needs to have the panels removed to remake some bits so that they match the replacements which have been done to match original fitments, there have been some panels replaced previously that do not match the original items ,so to bring the vehicle back to the correct spec, these now need to be looked at.

 

Any progress on that birdcage martin? Would love to see pictures of it...
Daniel

 

hopefully it should be outshopped in the next few weeks, i will try to get some pictures on wednesday and post them on here i can say, it looks very good.

 

Good to read about work of this kind. Makes everybody realise how much work is involved.

Just a plea that the finished item gets used a bit on a regular basis. It's one of life's irritations to see interesting old vehicles stuck in carriage sidings whilst being obliged to ride in well worn, characterless, Mk.1's! Whilst this is a widespread failing of tourist railways it is not one the K.E.S.R. is free from.

Some weight would be saved as well, resulting in a reduction of fuel costs.

P

 

Thanks Martin, appreciate it. Will be lovely to have a Birdcage back in SECR livery, the pre-grouping liveries really make a magnificent addition to already magnificent stock.
Daniel

 

I was pleased to see that 61 was in use pretty much every time I visited during the summer.

 

The birdcage should be part of the vintage rake next year, 4 of the vehicles will be in the SECR livery, the birdcage, family saloon, and 2, 4 wheelers ,

 

Taken earlier today

 

Absolutely magnificent, thanks for posting the photo. Will be lovely to see her with the rest of the set, and possibly a visitor from the Bluebell in the correct livery?
Daniel

 

That looks stunning.

What are the plans for K&ESR 60 - SECR 1106?

 

As far as i know there are no short term plans to restore 1106, nor any plans to restore anything else ,that is not in the program already , i understand next year its going to be mostly the pulman set , Aries will be finished off by K&ESR staff, Barbera will need ongoing repairs, the NBO leaks like a seeve, its a case of too much work, but no money to employ more staff to do the work.
the NBO in the shed needs to be finished off before anything else gets started, the Cavel van is due in Nov to be repainted after drying out, its in a poor state with damp ingress, the RMB needs repairs to the flooring , and thats all before you touch any of the other running sets , the department has only 2 full time staff, 1 apprentice ,and 2 part time employees doing 2 days a week, down to 1 when i leave at end of Dec, plus 6 voluenteers who do between 1-3 days each week, we all do a very good job with what we have got, but its a losing battle, vehicles are getting older, the youngest Mk1 has to be 55-60 years old, the vintage stock even more so, un scheduled repairs often mean the plans slip, the Birdcage 1100 took a lot longer to do because based on previous experience we had to protect the structure of the vehicle first, this meant taking the body down to bare wood to give it a coat of resin to seal the wood, this preserves the body, so in the future the next repaint will be a lot less work, untreated the body would rot out with in 4-5 years.