Restoration of SRJ No. 33 and other notes from Swe

Good New Year from the Roslagsbana Veteranstågs Föreningen!

Our first focus for this year is to complete work on the roof.

Peter has already done a substantial amount of work up there fixing split planks, filling gaps, etc.  His rebuilt corners are a work of art! Seen above, they consist of blocks and strips laminated together and shaped, smooth as the proverbial! It is vital to get a smooth surface otherwise the enevitable movement between canvas and roof planks will rapidly wear holes in the cloth.

Pelle and Tomas were up on the roof sorting out the various wooden cable ducts.  For the modellers among us, if you can’t get your rooflines straight, don’t worry. Neither can we!

The rest of the crew were working on the second pantograph.  Here the two Mickes are seen drilling out one of the taper-pins that hold the various brackets together.  Meanwhile in the paintshop, I’ve been painting  up more of the many covers and smaller pieces of equipment that will soon be needed for re-assembly.

as ever, all the best from Stockholms Östra (east), George!

All the best from Sweden to fellow railnutters!

Not much to report from No. 33 except to say progress as usual! Second pantograph is now under renovation, more windows and resistor covers being fettled and another layer of varnish on the western side. This week was out Julfest, Christmas meal, that followed a good tidy of the shed and workshops.  Hope everyone has a nice relaxing christmas and ww’ll be back here in the new year

as ever, all the best from Stockholm, George!

p.s. the picture is from 9am yesterday morning in the newly renovated Uppsala station, my usual commute to work!

First pantograph finished, now just one to do for the other end!

Micke swapping out the cables that connect the carbon collector to the rest of the pantograph.

REV. 11.11 Revision 11th month of 2011. The brass tag with the last overhaul date has been updated

The first 3 covers that protect the resister banks on the roof are finished (2 shown here).  Once I find somewhere to put them I can do the last 2.  You can see some of the resisters and their insulators reflected in the top right hand corner.

Christer and Lasse (S) completing the last of the renovated passanger doors by replacing the glass.  Lasse (C) working on the centre door from B-end.

The re-wiring has reached the junction box under the southern (A-end) headstock.  This connects into the jumper cable (blue cable covers above Micke) that carries heating and lighting to the rest of the train.  As there is no place on the Roslagsbana where stock can get turned around these jumper cables are only fitted on the southern end of stock, while a socket (featured last time) is fitted on the northern end.

Some of the group also spent a little time over on the other side preparing the operating stock for our annual Santa Lucia specials that will run this weekend.  We had a little light snow over the last few days, so hopefully this will persist and give our photographers something spectacular to point their cameras at.  I’m looking forward to seeing the newly re-varnished No.35 in a winter landscape!

As always, all the best from Stockholm, G!

You may recall me talking about a couple of our group who were involved in restoring a 1910 built diesel engine in an old military fort east of Stockholm.  Well, they got it working!

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G!

Now just to dispel the myth (if not the mist) that there is always blue skies in Sweden, here is a picture from Sunday.

November tends to be uniformly grey here (OK, not quite true, but it is beginning to feel that way) It does make for good steam effects though!

The occasion was the annual Christmas market at Taxinge Slott (castle). As previously reported, the folks out at the Östra Sodermanlands Järnväg (ÖSlJ) have recently relayed the line from the mainline to Taxinge with 600mm gauge track.  This year they ran a steam service in connection with the market. A 9 mile round trip in paraffin lit carriages warmed by wood burning stoves, glögg (mulled wine)  …. mmmmm

Meanwhile back at Stockholms Östra, work continues on No.33.  Here Lasse and Micke are re-fitting the window to the B-end door.

Painting of the newly renovated pantograph proceeds

and even your humble blog-master is occasionally caught doing something useful!

This week however I missed our usual tuesday evening due to a work meeting, 60 feet under eastern Stockholm!

There is a railway connection! This is the test-mine of Atlas-Copco. They started in the 1870s building railway locomotives, before moving onto diesel engines and compressors, and are now one of the leading manufacturers of mining and tunnelling equipment.  In the 1930s they started testing their mining equipment under their factory and headquarters in eastern Stockholm and, while the manufacturing has moved out of town, they still test new drilling machines here.  They now have over 3km (nearly 2 miles) of tunnels under their headquarters and the shopping centre that has replaced their factory.  They have also built a modern conference facility complete with a 90 seater auditorium in the mine! Now, as a geologist I am used to meetings that recommend protective footware, but not for the conference centre!  Anyway, a good meeting and a fascinating tour of the active part of the mine (above) as part of the deal!

So a paraffin headlamp from the ÖSLJ to finish, as ever, all the best from Stockholm, George!

As previously reported, many of the team have been involved in renovating a pantograph over the last few weeks.  Today we got to the stage of testing it, does it work?

and yes, up it goes!  As the lifting mechanism is run of the railcars pneumatic system, it is quite easy for us to test the pantograph using the workshops big compressor.

Release the air pressure, and back down again! Just need to paint it now, oh yes, and do one for the other end as well …

The electrical team were wiring in the electric train heating socket at B-end, using a bracket that I finished painting last week.  Hmm, got to think about doing something with the headstock to which it is bolted soon …

Although not quite everything was going right with this job.  I believe Pele was saying “Nope, it does not fit here!” or swedish words to that effect.

A couple more items recently completed in the paintshop.  These are stop-cocks for the air-brake pipes, two per end, so two more to do for No.33, but I will also do 4 others for No.35 to complement the facelift we gave her this summer.

Latest arrival in the paintshop is the first of 4 covers for the rooftop resister banks.  You can see some of the resisters tucked away in the right hand corner (white insulators).  The covers will eventually be black on the outside, but unpainted on the inside.  They get pretty hot during operation so any paint would not last long, even the paint on the outside takes a beating!  There is however a wonderful story from the works up in Morby, from when these railcars were in service and some had their roofs painted with Aluminium paint.  An apprentice was sent out to repaint the roof of one railcar and, in his enthusiasm, not only painted the canvas and resister covers, but also painted the resisters and their insulators …

…  the resulting explosion and fire completely removed the roof of said railcar …

… the fate of said apprentice was not reported …

Not all of the team were working on electrical matters.  Peter was renovating another droplight (Pele, er, “advising”) while Lasse (C) and Bengt rubbed down the varnish on the west side once again.

as ever, best regards from Stockholm, George!

Just a few shots from recent trips out and about in central Sweden:

Local traffic is very colourful in Östergötland!  The units are however virtually identical to those that are used in 8-car blocks for the Stockholm commuter traffic.

There are still many of the earlier station buildings around, although, like many, this one is now being used for other purposes – a hairdresser in this case.

Station facilities these days only consist of bus shelters

Every now and again you spot something exotic.  A couple of the infrastructure companies have been buying up old Danish diesels for use when the overhead electric is shut down. These TMY class were originally built in Sweden in the 1950s for the DSB, but have only recently started to operate here as the were withdrawn from service in Denmark.

and a gratuitous passing scenary shot to finish!

best regards as ever from Sweden, G!

Autumn has definitely arrived and the nights are drawing in here in Stockholm, but with summer traffic and most charter work out of the way, we are cracking on with No.33 (although I think No.35 is due to go out next weekend …)

Why is Micke attacking a brake hose with a hacksaw?

The main focus of restoration at the moment is the first pantograph.  When they come down they land on a couple of steel stops, sections of old brake hose are used to cushion the landing, we are replacing old with not quite so old!

Christer removing rust and old paint.

I’d never realised how much there was to one of these until we started this job.  For example the thing is raised by two compressed air cylinders, the large round object in front of Christer and a second on the other side, via a system of cranks.  The two narrower but longer springs balance the two halves.  Most of this is of course live at 1500v so needs insulated from the rest of the railcar.

This insulator will need swapped out.

RE 3 64.  This pantograph was last renovated in March 1964.

Lasse C. and Bengt were applying another coat of varnish to the west side. Sanding would have been unpopular (!) so I retreated to the paintshop.  Here are a couple of stop-cocks for the brake hoses. Some shiny brass to polish at last!

And some varnished fittings for B-end cab.

All the best as ever from Stockholm, George!

While there has not been much of a spectacular nature going on with 33 recently, progress continues on all fronts:

We are building up the varnish on the final section of the exterior, the west side.  The aim is to have the whole railcar up to 6 coats (of 7) before final assembly after which a top coat will be applied to seal everything in and cover up any dings and scratches we might create in the process …

Peter and Linda continue to strip and fettle up windows from the passenger saloons, there are 14 in all!  Plus 5 for each cab. Here Peter is attaching the cloth strip that lines and seals the runners.  While the cloth is original, we have a slight departure from historical correctness … as built the strips on the cloth run vertically but the only off-cuts we have are the wrong shape!  Anyway, these will disappear when we reassemble the windows and no-one will know, will they?

The human ammeter? The electrical team have most of the wiring in place and now just (!) have to complete attaching the cables to their components at each end.  Here Pelle is at work on the mechanical transformer, the same as the one we changed on No.37 at the beginning of the summer.

He has also replaced on the the 6v emergency lighting runs in the passanger saloon while I’ve had the panels off.  New wire but re-using the original leather cable clips.  This was in part necessary when I discovered an old repair made with a 2″ nail, right through one of the cables!

I’ve now moved into B-end passanger saloon.  This retains the 1940s hardboard panels and as such constitutes one of the most genuine parts of the railcar in that it is original material from a stage in No.33s history.  Much discussion took place about what to do here, do we strip it out and reveal plus substantially repair the tongue and groove behind (and add 6 months to the job … )  The old argument about preservation, conservation and restoration. In the end we decided to retain as much as possible, repair and repaint back to the 1940s yellow.  There were however some serious problems to address.  Water ingress through droplights had rusted out the nails that attach the tongue and groove boards behind the hardboard to the oak frame, you can just make out the bulges below the wooden battons (that hold the seats in place) that I’m marking up before removal.  Now when restoring an old lady to her prime, unsightly bulges are just not on so in these areas the hardboard had to be stripped out and the boards re-attached (with brass screws this time).  Unfortunately the large hardboard panels did not give up easily and are being replaced, but as much as possible is being recycled to fill the smaller gaps.

New hardboard in place.  The top edge is not a mark of poor cutting but precisely follows the (far from straight) top edge of the underlying boards!

Lasse (C) has all but finished renovating the centre door for B-end drivers cab.  You can see the new oak framework at the bottom and new pine tongue and groove panels let in above.  The other side also has new teak, a really smart piece of work!

More of the many smaller components are being looked out and renovated.  Here a stack of between-seat radiators has arrived in the paintshop.  As mentioned last week on of the pantographs has been moved inside on one of our new trollies.

As I say, nothing spectacular but steady progress on all fronts.

as ever, best regards from Stockholm Östra, George!

The Roslagsbana works at Mörby was having a clearout last week and kindly let us have a number of items.

This is an X7p class railcar.  OK, there are a few bits missing but …

Or maybe we’ll just fill the gap between the motor-bogie and the pantograph with a small body and build ourselves a little run-around.  Sounds like a job for the Briddons!

No, seriously, we won ourselves a spare motorbogie, a pantograph and a couple of trollies.  While the bogie does not fit any of our own railcars, there are still a couple of X7p s in existance, one in the Spårvägsmuseet (who also own title to all our vehicles) and one retained by the Roslagsbana as a works/rescue vehicle.  Maybe one day … (either that or it will yield quite a few useful spares)

One of the trollies was built to carry pantographs around the works, and was quickly put to work doing exactly the same for us.

After partial dismantling outside, the pantograph is tucked away again until next week.

And finally a bit of tractor shunting.  Well, not having a tractor, Lasse’s Citron had to do!  During the track renovations at Stockholm Östra our other spare bogies had ended up quite a way down the yard, so Micke and Lasse set off to bring them back before we sheeted them over.

As always, best regards from Stockholm, George!