For the final post of the three Workshop Diaries this month, we catch up on a few of the jobs not covered in detail elsewhere…  There is quite a lot here so prepare yourselves for quite a long post!

Below: Ahead of participating in some filming work, the Leyland Cup Tipper has received some TLC to its paintwork, to freshen it up, without overdoing it as the ‘working clothes’ it wears were what made it suitable for the work in the first place!  It still remains our intention to overhaul the tipper body in due course, and repaint the whole lorry back into Blackburn Corporation livery.

Below: Rowley Station is being awoken, in readiness for the planned return of passenger trains in May.  The gardens have received a lot of attention, and the whole area looks better for the sun shining down on it too!

Below: Enjoying the sunshine…  During a depot shunt, 52 was placed outside, whilst 264 and 730 were repositioned.  The latter is awaiting a new inverter unit (that is manufactured in Canada), part of the commissioning into service at Beamish.  There is some work to be completed on the brake gear as well as some modifications to the windows and doors.  It will then be fully assessed for operational use at Beamish – so hopefully entry into service isn’t too far away now.  Gateshead 52’s return to operation is a rather more distant prospect…

Below: Contractors are working to the side of the tram depot, excavating the failing embankment in order to build a gabion wall (cages filled with rock and tied to gather to form a strong revetment) and improve drainage in the area.  The building has been liable to damp along this wall, and the poor ground conditions have prevented access to the gutters for cleaning.  This was the job we actually started to do – and many thousands of pounds has been invested into achieving this aim – a feature of ageing infrastructure unfortunately.

Below: Weardale 909’s seats have been removed and are being re-upholstered off-site.  A new emergency door (top deck) is to be made as the original is in poor condition (see photo below), and this will be wired so that it sounds a buzzer in the driver’s cab if it is opened whilst the bus is in use.  New tyres have been procured for the bus and there is a general buzz of enthusiasm about completing its light-overhaul and placing it into service this summer.

Below: Whilst the seats are away being reupholstered, the seat frames have been cleaned and painted, and the interior deep cleaned in readiness for its re-entry into service.

Below: New tyres fitted and the last of the wheels installed and the nuts torqued up (the nuts are run up using an impact gun, and then the final torquing is applied by hand using the extended torque wrench.

Below: The cork covering on the downstairs bulkhead of KPT 909 is also in poor condition and this will be replaced and repainted as part of the recommissioning work.

Below: Areas of Crosville 716’s paintwork have been showing signs of wear, so these are receiving attention this week, with the bonnet and areas around the windscreen being most in need of attention.  The bonnet top is being fully repainted.

Below: As part of the agreement for using the SMS Leyland Titan, some work to the front dome is being carried out on behalf of the owner.  It is probable that the bus will remain with us until at least the end of May, allowing it to take part in the Transport Festival across the Whit half-term week.

Below: Darlington 4 is now seeing some of the replacement components fitted – here the new platform step area is installed.

Below: Peter, who volunteers on various joinery projects, has been making some new/replacement items for the 1950s crazy golf course, including this very fine (and to scale!) chaldron waggon, and some other structures including Penshaw Monument.  These items have quite a hard life at the museum, so these have been made more robustly than previous structures, in the hope that they can withstand the constant assault from golf balls!

Rolling stock at Rolwey Station

Below: Inside the scaffolding structure, the GW Mink is having the roof prepared for repainting.  It has also received some bodywork repairs to try and keep it watertight. 

Below: After the roof was cleaned and sanded to remove the verdigris, it received its first application of white paint – large patches of which were immediately soaked deep into the fabric – see the patchy appearance in this view.  At least two further coats remain to be applied before final detail painting and then release back onto display.

Below: A third coat of white proved to be more effective yet, and a fourth has now been applied to finish off the job.  Some other bits of paintwork tidying have also been carried out and the van will shortly move back outside on display once again.

Below: The process of applying Highland Railway livery to the North London Railway coach has now entailed mixing our own shade of olive green by trial and error (but on the suggestion of the paint’s manufacturer, Craftmaster) until we arrived at a shade that looked ‘right’.  A swatch has been kept of this for future matching purposes.  The doors have been painted first so that the paint is hard enough to receive signwritten ‘THIRD’ lettering whilst the sign-writer is on site in late March.

Below: With the new mix of Olive Green applied to the doors (the third coat of green on them!), and one end of the coach, Aaron, the signwriter, has begun to apply the THIRD class lettering to the doors, based on drawings and photographs in a number of books on the Highland Railway and its rolling stock.  The green looks lighter in this photograph than it appears on the coach – probably a result of taking the photo in the very dark conditions that the coach is located in.

Below: Aaron is seen adding shade to the last door, before moving back to Gateshead 10 to complete the lining and legal lettering on the tram.  The rest of the NLR coach will be repainted last week – the doors being tackled first in order to make sure the paint was hard enough for the lettering to be applied.

Below: Work underway to complete the repaint of Gateshead 10.  Note that all of the corner advertising panels are now fitted, which will enable the side panels to be made to fit.  10 will appear in its pre-war guise, sans adverts on these panels (which are finished a very dark blue instead), which will create some visual difference to previous incarnations of its Gateshead livery at Beamish.

Engineering

Below: A shot from the machine shop – these are part of the keeps in which the leaf springs on Gateshead 10 locate.  Side pieces are to be welded to these, the rebate seen here thus becoming a pocket (the end of the longest leaf in the spring pack locating into this).

Below: Gateshead 10’s motors are current being trial fitted, with work to restore the suspension brackets now underway.  The motors were overhauled some time ago and have been stored since then – whence the dusty appearance.  Once all of the components associated with the motor suspension have been overhauled, they will be removed for painting, the motors removed to allow the brake and secondary suspension components to be assembled, before everything is put back together again in the next month or so.

Below: Steam Elephant departed on Tuesday morning, bound for the exhibition in Darlington (Hopetown).  It will return to us in June, and efforts will be then be focussed on returning it to operating condition in time for the summer holidays.

A short video of Steam Elephant’s arrival in Darlington and installation into the exhibition can be found on Hopetowns social media sites.

Tramway infrastructure 

Contractor SPL Powerlines have been carrying out a number of overnight sessions, replacing spanwires and insulators on the tramway.  Whilst similar work has been underway in-house during the winter, the need to accelerate the process and tackle some of the more complex areas (requiring multiple points of access i.e. more plant and people!) has meant utilising support such as this.

We are chasing down the deadline to reopen the Tramway for the start of the Easter holidays (sooner if we can manage it!) and this work greatly assists in achieving this aim.  We also have work on the resurfacing of the road at the eastern end of the Town commencing shortly, which will enable the road to be reopened again to all traffic.

Below: Work was carried out between the Town and Entrance, with work including replacement of spanwires and insulators as well as overall inspection and maintenance.  Having the resources to throw at the job greatly sped up progress and with the contract completed, we are very pleased with the way in which this has worked out.

Below: The team also carried out span wire renewal and insulator replacement around Foulbridge, where there is a fairly complicated OLE arrangement (as the trollebus wires also intersect the Tramway route).

Hawthorn Leslie 3715/1928 (Swanscombe No.1)

A new, and what will be short-term resident arrived this week.  Previously located at the Colne Valley Railway in Essex, Swanscombe No.1 will be based at Beamish for a couple of years, during which time its owner will carry out a cosmetic restoration of the locomotive.  It is not forming part of Beamish’s fleet, and there is no intention to restore it to steam during this period. It forms part of an increasing focus on partnerships within the region, and looking at collections in the round – across sites, not just specific to one site.  The owner intends to look at its potential for restoration to working order, once his other projects are completed, and this would take place at another site as and when the time comes for that to take place.

Meanwhile, the locomotive arrived at Beamish on the 27th March and was unloaded in the Colliery.

March has certainly been a busy month! Not really of blog-interest, a great deal of work has also been underway on documentation and systems updates, as we move to the start of the high season next month as well as re-start operation on the Tramway and at Rowley Station in the near future.

Photos in this post by Matt Bedard, Phil Doran, Paul Jarman and David Moseley