Following a fortnight’s holiday (more of which in due course – inevitably such a break involved trains!) I returned and offer this post as a quick catch up on progress on some projects in the RHEC.  We will shortly have a re-shuffle of projects, which I shall report on in the near future.

Below: Phil has been busy on the bus, which is now a week from completion of its repaint.  The lettering (seen being applied by Phil) is genuine and based on photographs of Newcastle Corporation Transport buses (I’ll scan the photos for the blog at some point).  Looks nice doesn’t it?! The mudguards, side rails and numerous other fittings are still to add.

Below: The volunteer team working on R025 have now broken the whole roller down into its main components. The chassis will be shotblasted thus enabling the rest of the roller to be gradually rebuilt onto it.  Evidence at the moment suggests that it was yellow when new, later painted a grey-blue then blue-grey (there is a difference!).  Some more research is required before a livery is selected – yellow would be unusual but is notoriously difficult to apply and might look too modern on this mid 1920s machine.