Cleaning and decorating, painting and electrics

 This evening we cleaned and decorated the operating set for our traditional pre-Christmas Luciatåg.  Micke starting up No.37.  The pantographs are pneumatic, so once the compressed air has leaked off, we need to hold them against the overhead line until the compressor recharges the system.

We then proceeded to decorate,

stars in the from windows of each railcar.

 Tinsel and other decorations inside.

We have had a few electrical issues with No.35.  Here the electric team are checking the schematics.

Work continues on No.33.  More painting inside and down below.  The recovering of the floor in new hardboard is almost complete.

Best regards from Stockholm, George!

A winters evening in Stockholm

Back from my travels and back in our workshop for the first time in 3 weeks.  Business as usual and progress on all fronts.

Lasse and Bengt were busy on the last bit of stripping back the many layers of flooring in the main saloons and re-skinning with new hardboard.  Micke is pointing out where they missed a bit ...

The handbrake mechanism at B-end is now all painted up and re-installed.  The other Lasse continues to chip and repaint the underframe improving its appearance dramatically.

I have now spliced in the second part of the replacement trim between the wall and the ceiling in B-end saloon ...

... and begun to paint it up.

An odd problem has occurred on the east wall (only) of the passenger saloon.  These odd paint "growths" have appeared along the joins in the tongue and groove.  I suspect that what happened was as follows. Shortly after I painted this wall we replaced the teak paneling on the outside of this side (only) with new.  As we attached each panel, we treated the inside with linseed oil and turpentine to help preserve it.  I suspect, as the turps evaporated off, some of the fumes escaped through the joins into the passenger saloon and re-mobilised one of the still-soft paint into these odd carbuncles.  No problem to deal with, just a couple of careful swipes with a razor blade and problem solved!

It was good to see the Roslagsbana running all the way into Östra again after the recent major works on the station track layout.

Feeding carriages, railcar interiors and boat crews!

Finally!  An update!

Sorry for the lack of updates, this does not reflect a lack of progress, just many things going on (mainly good!).  Progress continues at Stockholm Östra every Tuesday evening.  Our teak carriage, 880, lives outside and, particularly the west side, takes the brunt of the weather.  Plans for covered accommodation are well advanced, but until they come to fruition, we do our best to preserve what is there.

As soon as it is undercover, it will be scraped back and re-varnished properly.  Until then we feed the side with a mix of linseed oil and turpentine before every winter.  Somewhat conversely, this has the effect of making the carriage look worse, as it forces all the black rotted wood out from between the grain of the good wood onto the surface, but beneath, it keeps the rest of the wood good until the day we can address it properly

Nights are drawing in, by the time we were finished, it was almost dark.

Over in our restoration shed, work continues with 33.  New trim between the walls and the ceiling is being rebated to take the strips that cover ceiling joins, then attached.

I have finally got the last bit of ceiling trim in place, the long one between the partition and the ceiling, white in the above photo.  This one fought be all the way ...

Finally, everything in place and all nail and screw holes filled with filler.

Bengt and Lasse have finished recovering the floor in A-saloon with new hardboard and have started stripping back B-saloon to bare floorboards before doing the same there.  Elsewhere the other Lasse continues to chip and paint the underframe, Soren and Daniel were working on our passanger-rated goods/brakevan, and Micke was running around doing several things.  There was othre activity going on, but I didn't get a chance to run around and check up on everyone so I'm not completely sure what was going on!

And those other distractions?  One of them was Constantia, the 108 year old schooner I am involved with.  The first weekend in October is the annual Saltkråken Race in which many of the Stockholm area traditional sailing ships take part.

This year we had 9 ships averaging 88 years in age.  We also had virtually no wind, so it was a pretty slow race!  Here you can see 3 ships that all started their lives as North Sea Fishing ships just before WW1, but from different countries.  Shamrock (left) was built in Holland while Sunbeam (centre) is a Lowestoft Trawler from England and Ariel (left) was built in Norway.  After the fishing industry went over entirely to steam in the 1930s, all three came to Sweden and continued to work as fishing or small cargo vessels long enough to be preserved.  All three have had their sailing rig restored to near original condition although have all gained various deck-houses and have had the holds converted for accommodation.

If anyone is interested, there is an album of photographs from the weekend here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44765602@N03/albums/72157659397588316/with/21943701705/

and some film here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ub5hn01GMk

best regards from Stockholm,

George!

Brakes floors and the trimmings

Micke and Lasse S were re-installing the handbrake at B-end

Micke tightening the bolts for the bracket on the inside of the headstock

On the outside of the headstock sits another bracket on which the vertical column turns.  Here you can see the linkage in place.

Behind is a large curved link that transfers the movement of the brake shaft around the headstock and to the horizontal.  Now all in primer.

Inside, Lasse C and Bengt have begun laying a hardboard skin on top of the old floorboards as a precurser to laying new lino.  If you look closely you can see the pencil marks that they are using to show where the joints in the floorboards are, i.e. where not to nail down the hardboard!

More small details painted up and added.  Here one of the mounts for the ceiling vents.  We must remember to cut a hole in the roof canvas for this one before we mount the inside vents themselves or this one will not work so well!

I've started to add the trim between the walls and the ceiling.

Covers for the cable runs below the doors also being added and painted up.

Lasse has been working on the monitor/regulator for the dry air machine we are installing in 880, our 1914 built carriage.  He had it nicely set up at home, calibrated to 3 other devices.  By the time he got it back to the shed it was way off again ...  My suggestion of dipping it in boiling water to set the 100% level was not so well received.

best regards from Stockholm Östra, George!

Teak and wheels

A shorter post this week, but no reflection on the activity going on, more on the fact I took less photographs!

Originally there was a sliding door built into the partition between the two passenger saloons.  The black you can see is the remains of the rubber strip against which the door closed. The door was removed in the 1940s rebuild and the gaps around the frames filled with teak strips.  During our restoration, we removed the hardboard skin (also added in the 40s) from A-end saloon to reveal the original tongue and groove that you can see.  This also moved the corner trim back approx 3mm and the infill strip no-longer fitted.  Bengt took about ½ hour to fix this.

Trimmed strip back in place, now just needs varnished up to match the rest of the frame

The rebuild of Stockholm Östra continues.  The works had started to encroach on our stored spare wheelsets, indeed one had been knocked off the rails!  We therefore persuaded one of the guys with a front loader to lift the wheelsets out of their way onto a number of pallets outside our workshop.

Elsewhere activity on a number of fronts including fixing of footsteps, much chipping and painting of the underframe, the last curved ceiling strip fixed in place and addition of more filler and primer elsewhere on the ceiling of the passanger saloons.  Best regards from Stockholm, George!

Progress with No.33

A productive Tuesday evening on No.33 this week with 6 of us working

The two Lasse's were reattaching the steps

Beginning to look good!  It is great to see more and more renovated pieces being re-attached each week.

I was filling the ceiling of B-end saloon, the one that is being restored to 1940s condition at the time of the railcars refit and upgrade to 1500v.  The last piece of trim for A-end was also being bent to shape this evening and the latest rub-down of A-end saloon ceiling was pushed a little further (until the blood completely ran out of my arms!)

Henrick and LasseC cleaning up one of the luggage racks with the pressure cleaner ready for painting

Elsewhere Bengt was cleaning up and varnishing some more teak trip while Daniel was working on numerous jobs including a good clean-up around the railcar.

Finally, a view of the rather unusual bogies that this railcar has, with the main frame being below the axles.  I think this design was used to reduce the height of the bogie.

best regards from Stockholm, George!

Sorry for the lack of updates, work has taken me back to the Swedish Arctic last week.  Here you can see the Inlandsbana at Kåbdalis, just south of the Arctic Circle in one of the last trains of the year

Back at Stockholms Östra, Bosse and Henrik are re-fitting the sand boxes to B-end cab.  The floor over the traction motor lifts up to give us access - sort of!

Here is the base of the sandbox in place.  It contains the air jet that blows the sand into the pipe and down to the rail, this is now under the floor.  A hopper bolts ontop, fixed with those butterfly nuts

In B-end saloon I have now finished fitting the new trim to the ceiling, covering the gap between two large hardboard boards.  Painting of the ceiling in here can now begin.  One more piece of trim to fit in A-end saloon, and the rails beween the walls and ceiling, then several coats of paint ...

Following the Stockholm Steam Ship event 2 weeks ago, this weekend the Maritime Museum held a sailing ship event.  Above is Deodar, a Brixham Trawler from 1911 in very original condition and beautifully maintained by her owners.  There was also a Lowestoft trawler (Sunbeam of 1905), a couple of schooners (one of which I'm involved with) and several other sailing ships in attendance.  St Erik was in steam again and all was available for free!

Fieldwork is over for the season so reports should become somewhat more regular from now.  Best regards from Stockholm, George!

Per Mare, Per Terram (By Sea, By Land)

I'll start this weeks blog with a couple of pictures from our friends in Uppsala, the Lennakatten

The Roslagsbana used to be a much more extensive network covering Roslagen, north and east of Stockholm, and even extending west as far as Uppsala.  Another group have preserved 33km of this network between Uppsala and Faringe, where they have their engineering base.

During July and the beginning of August they have mid-week running and, if I time it right, I can coincide with their train on my way home from work.  Last Thursday, their impressive Tp class from 1953 was in charge of the 1710 departure, the first carriage is one of two sister carriages to our own 880

This is a real working loco, and probably hasn't seen a true overhaul since it left commercial service.  A lovely example of the buildup of grime for the modelers!

Back in Stockholm, Lasse has continued chipping and painting the brackets for the steps and the area behind.

This is the brake pull-rod for B-end.  It runs down the outside front of the cab from a hand-wheel inside. There is a screw-thread under the lower brown sleeve which draws up the black block (behind the black bracket).

The lugs on the block engage into the two links lying on the floor, and the sharply curved link transfers the motion around and under the headstock.  This is currently apart for painting and fettling.  You can also see the connector for the electric train heating cables and one of the airbrake pipes, stuffed with rags to keep muck out while we work

Over on the other side of the tracks, work progresses on the dry air blower with the sensor probe mounted on the opposite side of the bulkhead and ducting being installed for the device itself

Micke made up this contraption (and left it lying around the paintshop - so I painted it!)  This will fit over the air output to distribute the dry air around the interior of the carriage a bit better

We took full advantage of the lovely evening (and the lack of traffic on the Roslagsbana during renovations of Stockholms Östra!) by hauling a table over to sit outside our motorwagon shed for coffee.  Very pleasant!

And by way of something a little different.   This weekend marked the 100th anniversary of the launch of St. Erik, Stockholm City's icebreaker.  To celebrate, the Maritime museum held a steamboat festival to which myself and my other half happily attended.  St Erik herself (himself?) is still operational and can be called upon to keep the sea lanes around Stockholm open if needed.  For this weekend they only had one of 4 boilers lit and kept the main engine, a massive 3 cylinder compound, turning over slowly.  A very impressive site to be in and around the the engine while it was operating.

The museum also invited 7 other operational steam boats and ships from around Sweden.  The oldest, Gerda, was 150 years old yesterday!  We had a very pleasant trip around Stockholm harbour on her.

as ever, best regards from Sweden, George!