This blog aims to follow the restoration of SRJ No. 16, later SJ No.33, by the Roslagsbanans Veterantågsforeningen in Stockholm, as well as our ongoing maintenance of a vintage train on the Roslagsbanan. This is a personal view of our activities, the official site of our group (in Swedish) is linked above.

Please note: all pictures on this blog are taken by me unless otherwise stated, and are copyright. If you wish to use them elsewhere, please contact me.

Saturday 19 September 2015

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!

Tuesday 8 September 2015

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!

Wednesday 2 September 2015



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!