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!

Dry air and ceilings

A small group this week, 3 of us, with most people still away on summer holidays.  Fitting of the dry air supply to 880 continues with the seat refitted over the unit, it fits - just!  Now that's precision for you.

The detector is being mounted on the other side of the central bulkhead, it was decided that mounting it beside the unit itself might give us somewhat false readings!  Micke is also manufacturing a distributer for the outlet of the unit to help mix the dry air within the carriage.

I'm continuing with the ceiling on 33, rubbed down about 20% of it for the second topcoat.

Also manufacturing new trim to cover joins between panels, and ends of planks on the ceiling.  Now, in an ideal world, we would use ash, steamed and bent to shape.  This is not an ideal world!  Fir works OK if you soak it for a couple of hours in warm water then clamp it to a former (this being left over from stretching the canvas over the roof, so is approximately the right radius).

Rebuilding of Stockholms Östra station continues between our two sheds.  Here the new station throat layout begins to take shape

As ever, all the best from Stockholm, George!

... and back to business

Now that fieldwork is over for the summer and a short holiday is sadly behind me, it is time to get back to regular posts.

While I have been away, a number of jobs have been progressed:

There was a substantial sag in the floor, just inboard of the access hatch for the southern bogie.  Rather than rip the whole floor apart, we decided to build up the area.  Bengt and Lasse have been working on this over the summer.

A new piece of oak has been let into the frame around the access hatch, and a steel band used to stabilise the old floorboards.  The low area was then built up with laminations of hardboard and sanded back to level.  The whole floor will later be covered in hardboard with new lino on top.

In the paintshop I found one of the access panels that sit over the doors, covering wiring and such.  Someone had started to renovate this one, so I added another coat of paint.

Here is one I renovated earlier, with teak trim added and in place.  It is held by 2 set-screws for easy access behind

Work has also been ongoing on the sandboxes at the north (B-) end.  This is the base unit of one hopper (that sits below the drivers seat) and the pipe that carries the sand down towards the wheels

The sandboxes are air operated, inside you can see the brass air nozzle (not in place) that blows the sand into the hole seen beside it.  Again, I gave this another coat of paint last night.

On the other side of the mainline, Micke and Daniel were busy installing a dry air unit into 880, our 1914 build teak carriage which, for the moment, lives outside

Meanwhile, on the Roslagsbana, major work was going on all around the Stockholms Östra site.  Here, their tower wagon (self propelled with a chain drive from a diesel engine in the lefthand metal box) sits on one of our sidings.

This beast, running on its own rails, was being used to set up a new double-slip at the station throat

Thats all for this week.  Updates should become more regular (every one to two weeks) now that everyone is coming back from summer holidays, etc.  All the best from Stockholm, George!