A good team of volunteers tackled various Rolling Stock Group jobs on Wednesday 4th August. The Wenhaston station WC, worked on by Keith, Bob and James, has had its hinges eased, its lock and handles fitted, the trapped bolts for the step completed, and the T&G taken off the corners ready for transport. I imagine you will ask – why put the T&G on and paint it, and then remove it again? The answer is that we need access to the nuts and bolts that fix the sides together, but also needed to cut the T&G to size – simple, really! Meanwhile, John H went to Wangford to fetch diesel fuel for the Motor Rail (it seems more than bizarre that Southwold, with its thousands of cars in summer, has no local provision for fuelling them).
Ken continued to put back parts of the Deutz engine, and, with a couple of trifles like the air cooler and alternator to do, the “top half” of the locomotive is well on towards completion. Chris and Linda went off to an as-yet-undisclosed site, to survey it for a possible new SRT workshop facility. James, as usual, made large quantities of tea, got in everyone’s way, and then (mercifully) got stuck in to the stabilisation of some of our more obscure SR artefacts: two point rodding stools on parts of original sleepers (given to the Trust by the EATM), and the heavily-rusted remnants of the water tank filler cap housing from either “Blyth” or “Halesworth”. This has now been treated with Fe123 Rustbuster, twice, and should deteriorate no more. The Wenhaston Millennium station sign has also been de-rusted with the same chemical (it’s based on phosphoric acid, and does a really good job on stopping rust in its tracks, as well as on providing a good substrate for painting), and red-oxide primed, ready for re-painting.
