Open Weekend at Ongar over Easter. E.O.Railway

On Easter Sunday and Monday Ongar reverberated to the sound of vintage transport. It wasn’t trains but vintage buses. The event was 'RT30' which commemorated the 30th anniversary of the last RT bus running in London service. Ongar station had the honour of being a meeting point for two of the three routes that ran this special weekend. The two routes were the red 175a and the green 339. This recalled an era in the when you could see red buses meeting green buses in areas like Romford, Brentwood, Croydon, Kingston and many more round London’s periphery. The other route running was the 247 between Romford and Brentwood. This gave passengers and enthusiasts a chance to ride in a triangular form.












The EOR team worked hard on restoration as well during the weekend activities:



Saturday 11th; Chris & Simon worked on the Ongar booking hall, continuing the good preparatory work completed last weekend. This included the first application of Great Eastern Railway gloss colours. This is the first time the walls have had these colours since the late 1930’s. Unfortunately due to lack of volunteers, we were unable to get all of the Booking Hall into gloss colours in time for the Open Day, but thanks to some long hours, one wall, the front door and lower ticket office panels were completed and dried over-night. Chris is kindly getting a friend to make up some exact replica GER pattern skirting board, and we are reinstating the picture rail, to accurately restore the room.

Sunday 12th; As part of the Open Day, EOR is keen to show the visitors the progress we are making towards re-opening, and demonstrate that the work is undertaken by people of all ages, skills and abilities – there truly is rewarding jobs for everyone! Simon started the day by “Brasso-ing” the door knobs in the Booking Hall, helping to set off the GER brown and hopefully approaching the atmosphere and standard the station would have been kept in days-of-old.

During the day, visitors could watch the transformation of the original Great Eastern gate, which hangs on the platform between the 1890's “Footwarmer Hut” and “Porters Room”. Pictured is how it looked when he started, and then after a day of sanding, filling and primer, then an application of undercoat during Monday. This just requires a coat of gloss to finish, and hopefully preserve the gate for a good few more years. The supporting post will be “needle-gunned” in the coming weeks after we have set up the works van and air compressor, prior to treating the rust – luckily due to the heavy rail used, the enormous strength of the post is easily able to support the gate despite years of neglect and layers of rust! Samples of the flaking paint have been carefully taken for future reference.



Easter Monday 13th; Simon was joined by Chris, Derek and his son, and latterly Charlotte, working together in the same area, to demonstrate the variety of jobs our volunteers undertake. This included removal of broken glass and old putty, putty work (including re-puttying some original 140 year old GER glass), sanding, filling, painting, restoring the picket fence gate, maintenance work on signals equipment and electrical signals work – checking circuits, fixing and restoring these items to once again safely control (heritage) trains.


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