CAR 54 ENTERS C&W

Pullman Car 54 has now entered the Carriage & Wagon Workshops at Horsted Keynes, initially for an in-depth study of its condition, and to enable the project plan for its restoration to be drawn up. More than half of the funding is already in place for the project, without call on the company's resources.

To minimise the impact on the work of the department, the plan is to employ a specific team to undertake the work, including a project manager and team leader, and discussions are in hand with a number of individuals potentially interested in being involved.

Part of the funding, from the Department for Transport Heritage Rail Innovation Awards, covers adapting the brake entrance and saloon to enable wheelchair access to our Pullman dining train.

Car 54 is one of a relatively small number of Pullmans built by Claytons at Abbey Works, Lincoln.  It was one of a pair of third class kitchen cars built in July 1923, notably the first of the long line of "K-type" Pullmans, on steel underframes with four-wheel bogies, rather than the earlier wooden underframes with six-wheel bogies. 

This car was built for use on the Great Eastern, with very small tables, not intended for full meal service. Consequently the spacing of the windows proved problematic when rebuilt in 1937 as a brake parlour car, resulting in an awkward internal seat layout.  As a result, reconstructing the body sides is being considered, to provide a conventional seating layout with seats aligned to the window openings, the modular construction of the body-side facilitating such alterations.

The car ran on the Southern Region as part of the Devon Belle, ending its days in a spare set to cover for maintenance of the diesel "Blue Pullman." On withdrawal it moved first to the Dart Valley Railway and then to the Birmingham Railway Museum in 1970.

Car 54 subsequently found its way to Carnforth, where it was stripped in preparation for restoration to traffic for the VSOE (Orient Express). It was laid aside, however, offered for sale, and was purchased in 1984 by a member of the Horsted Keynes Pullman Car Group.

By Richard Salmon (photos by David Jones)

BOOK YOUR PLACE FOR AUTUMN TINTS 2016

Autumn is a special time of the year at the Railway, when the trees of the beautiful Sussex countryside display their magnificent golden colours.

This year's Autumn Tints specials include:

• Special return trips in the 1950s cars "Ashdown," "Chelwood," and "Balcombe."
• Or watch the scenery from the ever-popular 1913 Observation Car (pre-booking is essential!)
• "Souper" steam and cream--Autumn vegetable soup at lunch and a mid-afternoon cream tea in our restaurant car
• Train services Monday through Friday

For more information on these specials and to book your ticket, visit this webpage.

UPDATE ON "SIR ARCHIE"

ATLANTIC GROUP UPDATE: OF HANDRAILS & STEAM VALVES

With the chassis all but complete we are now of course working on the boiler and its various ancillary parts. As might be expected, a lot of this is far from spectacular and is quite slow work, some of it being heavy and some of it quite tricky.

I hope you will all understand if this report does not have lots of "wow" factor but unfortunately most of the construction of an engine is very mundane and requires a lot of tenacity from the build team to work through these times, and patience from our sponsors and supporters eager to see progress.

Believe it or not the handrail knobs on most locomotive boilers are bolted into the pressure vessel itself, rather than to the support crinolins for the sheet metal lagging. The result of this is that we have to fit the stand-offs for the handrail knobs before we can fill the boiler with water.

The picture at right shows the handrail knobs temporarily fitted in the stand-offs that are in turn fastened into the boiler barrel. Needless to say, the scaffolding and ladder for access to the dome will be removed before the handrails themselves are fitted!

The handrails are hollow as they contain the operating rods for the blower steam valve on the left side of the engine, and the Westinghouse Pump steam valve on the right side. To achieve this, the standoffs on the firebox are of a different design to those on the boiler barrel, and even these latter items are of two differing lengths due to the differences in size of the rings of the boiler.

Below right we see the blower steam valve and the Westinghouse pump steam valve, which are now both almost complete, as produced in house by one of our skilled volunteers. The blower valve has the smaller pipe connections. Both are fitted to the sides of the smoke-box in line with the handrails. The lock nuts on the two pipe connections retain them in position on the smokebox ... MORE

By Fred Bailey

PROJECT 27 UPDATE: ALL STRIPPED DOWN



From the Project 27 blog: "The good news is that we believe that the loco has been stripped down as much as it will be (apart from cutting out the rot at the rear of the frames). So all news from now should concern putting things back on the frames!

The picture above shows the last pieces of footplating to be removed from the loco frames ready to be restored.  These appear to be in relatively good condition, so it should "just" be a matter of cleaning up the 106 year old steel! ..."

You can help out Project 27 by donating to to the new cylinder block appeal.

BLUEBELL RAILWAY HELPS OUT WITH HAYWARDS HEATH 175

As part of the Bluebell Railway's contribution to the Haywards Heath 175 celebrations the first of two Bluebell Railway Terriers left Sheffield Park on 26 Aug., 2016, to be displayed at Cuckfield Museum.

The museum has a display of numerous LBSCR items and the Bluebell Railway Museum has loaned a number of exhibits, including the model of Terrier
"Merton." The photo shows "Merton" in its new home.

The Haywards Heath 175 display runs from 2 Sept. until 19 Dec. For more details, visit Cuckfield Museum's website.

"Stepney" will leave Sheffield Park later to be displayed at Haywards Heath station on 18 Sept. For more information, see the story below.

By Tony Hillman

JOIN THE HAYWARDS HEATH 175 CELEBRATION

To celebrate Haywards Heath's 175th station anniversary, a number of special events will take place in Haywards Heath over the weekend of 17 and 18 Sept., 2016.
 
On 17 Sept., Town Day will take place in Victoria Park, including events, stands, and a fun fair. The evening will finish with a firework display.
 
On 18 Sept., events move to the station itself. There will be a grand procession of the Victorian dressed townsfolk, from Victoria Park to the train station. A plaque and other items will be unveiled at the station, which is currently undergoing a refurbishment.

Other activities:

• A visit by the Bluebell Railway's "Stepney"
• Train rides, land trains, and horse and carriage rides
• Children's train station adventures
• Marching bands
• A grand procession
• Films in Victoria Park
• Victorian Fun Fair

... and much more!

Join in the family fun! For more details or to get involved, contact Ruth de Mierre on 01444 453399.

GETTING IT COVERED

Derek Hayward's photo is part of a gallery showing great progress on the new carriage shed at Horsted Keynes. The Cash for Cover JustGiving total now stands at £368,457--thank you to all who have donated to help keep the Railway's carriages out of the elements and on their way to service.

CALLING ALL TERRIER FANS

Are you a keen Facebook enthusiast and or willing to learn? And/or are you an enthusiast of the Brighton Terriers or maybe just "Stepney" or "Fenchurch."
 
Then you could be just the person we are looking for. The Brighton Terrier Group on Facebook would like to appoint someone reasonably closely associated with the Bluebell Railway as an Administrator for the group on behalf of the Railway, to be responsible for monitoring applications to join the group and to publish the occasional photo on the page.
 
It's a volunteer opportunity, but one with an eye for the future--you could be the one who helps secure our future by signing up a keen youngster who goes on to be the chief engineer of the Railway!
 
If interested, please contact Hugh Nightingale by email or Facebook.

John Sandys (22 Aug., 2016): The sun came out to welcome back the S15 to service on set B in place of "Camelot," with the Q class on set A. Quite busy today, with both trains well-loaded later in the day."

By Dan Green.