Catching up - again, No.33

A gentle prod from Pete Briddon (see links) reminded me that it has been over a year since I last updated this blog!  Thanks Pete!  All the usual excuses, a 14 month old child, a 109 year old ship and, of course, work on our 99 year old railcar. So, what have we been up to in the last 12 months?

Bengt and Lasse finished applying an 8th coat of varnish to the exterior, this railcar is going to glow when we get it out in the sunshine!

I moved on to the ceiling in B-end saloon, the last major area of the interior to require painting.  Note also that we have covered in old floorboards with a skin of hardboard in order to provide a clean and level surface to apply the lino.

Once I had finished throwing paint around, we refitted the luggage racks that Micke had been cleaning up and painting on the other side of the tracks.  This did require a little routing of the trim I had fitted between the wall and the ceiling.  The wall boards are new in this renovation, replacing 50s hardboard (as seen in B-end saloon) while the ceiling is original with hardboard removed.  Trying to line up the new trim with the surviving trim in B- end and the drivers compartments ment the luggage racks didn't line up with the 50s vintage holes, something I didn't spot at the time.  Easiest solution was to rout out a recess in the new trim

Luggage racks in place in A-end.

Exterior doors have been refitted with new rubber seals and new or renovated metal strips.



Lasse reattaching a renovated metal shield to the base of the door.

Interior doors are also being worked on.  Here a new (salvaged) oak strip at the base of the door.





In order to both expedeite  process as well as ensure a top quality job, we brought in an outside contractor to lay the lino throughout the railcar.  The results are well worth the expense. We are now under strict instruction to only step on the protective paper from now on! Henrik is refitting the last of the light fittings.

Interior doors going back in as well.  This is the door to B-end drivers compartment.

Passenger doors also being re-hung, here one of the NW corner (B-end) doors,

and here, complete, the SE corner pair.

Lasse and myself have been making up these oak blocks, again from salvaged timber, to space the radiators off the floor while others have been renovating, repainting and setting up the wiring for the radiators.

About those distractions.  I am also involved in the group that maintains and operates Constantia, a 109 year old Danish built schooner based in Stockholm.  Last winter saw the ship in dry dock for an extended period while we replaced a number of planks in the hull as well as renewed all the bulwarks.  We also re-caulked many of the seams, renovated the foremast and many of the blocks, had the propellor built-up with new bronze and machined back to size, and generally repainted and fettled the ship. Here she is under full sail doing approx. 11 knots during her first run out of the year in the outer Stockholm archipelago.

Myself at the helm, one of our regular captains looking on.  All the crew are professionally qualified and we even get paid to sail her when we are doing charter or kids sail training trips.   Not much but pays for the days we sail for ourselves! Note the T-shirt supporting another heritage sgip still in active service, the Glenelg Ferry, the worlds last turntable ferry

So I leave you with a picture of Constantia moored up for the night against a rock outcrop in the Stockholm Archipelago and a promise of more frequent updates!

best regards from Stockholm, George!

Running fleet maintainance and further progress on No33

I arrived last Tuesday evening to find No.37, our youngest railcar (1938) ticking over outside the railcar shed

One of the heating circuits had developed a fault, the tracing of which involved leaving the railcar outside with one circuit powered for a while and then seeing what worked and what didn't!  Here a modern service train passes.

Inside I found a pair of legs sticking out of No.35!  A nasty accident?

Actually it was Soren and Daniel measuring and checking the carbon brushes on the traction motors.

In front of No.35, Micke was painting the luggage racks for No33, a local band (ABBA) playing on the stereo.

Back over on the other side of the mainline, Bengt and Lasse were busy adding a final layer of varnish to No33 while I was adding another layer of paint to the saloon ceiling

 (photo by Henrik on my camera!)                                         

Henrik meanwhile had finished off painting more of the internal doors, which now await refitting of glass and metal fittings.

 No.37 still sitting outside, ticking over as the mist rolled in.

 

 

A wintery November Tuesday

November and December are normally the grey months in Stockholm so, for me at any rate, the arrival of snow this week has been very welcome!  It has been snowing gently for almost a week now, not much, but enough to cover everything and make it sparkle.

Anyway, back to No.33.  After a month away due to the rather dramatic arrival of our first child, it was good to get back on with this project.  Unfortunatly no-one had finished painting the ceiling while I was gone, so it was back to that task.  The first top-coat had gone on a bit rough - end of an old can of paint, so a good rub down and the first half up to second top-coat.  I think one more and this will be declared finished.

While I was away, Lasse and Bengt have been busy rubbing down the exterior for its last coat of varnish.

More fittings continue to be added to the exterior, the various protectors for the brake column at B-end as well as the gate on the end door are recent additions.  Valves and airbrake pipes (2 at each end) have also made an appearance.

Hopefully this post should herald somewhat more frequent posts on the progress with No.33, especially as our sailing ship is in dry dock for some fairly extensive timber replacement this winter, that's her at the end, beyond Sunbeam, an old Lowestoft trawler, so she will prvide less of a distraction for a while!

best regards from snowy Stockholm, George!

Summers Activities

After some gentle prodding from the UK (Thanks Pete!) the blog is back! 

It has been a busy summer for the operating set, fortunatly with few problems

Every weekend in July, we ran specials in association with the steam ship Blidösund: http://www.blidosundsbolaget.se/en/

We provided vintage transport from Stockholm Östra up to Lindholmen using No.35 

 

Here passengers were met by a vintage bus that took them over to the coast

Passengers then boarded Blidösund, which would convey them gently back to Stockholm serving them a classic Swedish dinner along the way.  All in all this proved very popular and I believe was fully booked for every run.  Hopefully something we can repeat in the future!

 

Built in 1911 in Göteborg for traffic between Stockholm and Blidö in the Stockholm Archipelago, she is in very good original condition, including her original steam plant.  She is now owned by an association who preserve her by operating her for day cruises and charters in the Stockholm area.

For me, a significant part of the summer was spent on another vintage transport project of mine, the 1908 built 2 masted schooner Constantia.  This year we took her through the Göta Canal (she only just fits in the locks, with 10 cm to spare at each end!) for a summer on the west coast

 

We took part in two traditional ship races, the first from Hobro in northern Denmark to Kragero in southern Norway via Göteborg in Sweden.  We won the first stage in that race.  We then took part in another race around the Danish island of Fyn, winning 4 of 5 stages and therefore the race as a whole!

Back in the Stockholm area I have also been crewing on quite a few of the charter trips that we do to fund her preservation and operation.  OK, so thats my excuses, or some of them anyway, for not keeping the blog up to date!

 

 Back on the Roslagsbana, our full operating set (one carriage, one full brake top-and tailed by electric railcars) continued to operate every weekend in August with our traditional summer public running.  Here is the interior of our 1914 built carriage 880.  A bit tired, and more or less as left commercia service but still in reasonable condition.

 

For the mechanical group, most of the work was keeping the set clean and maintained, and fixing the few problems as they came up.  One report from the operating crew was that the jumper cable on 35 was a bit tight and difficult to operate.  We dealt with that with a sanding disk on the angle grinder.

Well ... Micke and Daniel delt with it, Soren and I stood arouond adding helpful comments such as  "shall I fetch you the metal polish ... "

Work continues on 33 within the workshop.  I am now painting the final part of the interior, the ceiling of B-end saloon while Henrick is painting doors.  Lasse and Bengt have commences giving the exterior a final rub-down.  The double glazed windows had aquired a significant amount of grime between the two panes of glass so we have also been dismantelling, cleaning and reassembling those one at a time.  Once painting is finished, the lino can go down on the floor and the interior can begin to come together.

Hopefully more frequent updates to come, as well as reports on a couple of trips to other narrow gauge railways in the area.  as ever, best regards from Stockholm!

Catching up again ...

Apologies for the lack of updates, no reflection on the amount of work going on at Stockholms Östra, just been a wee bit busy myself ...

Anyway, Our open day was a great success, no idea how many visitors we had but there always seemed to be a pleasing number of people exploring the shed, including an encouraging number of youngsters!

While we couldn't bring visitors across the tracks this year, we had both operational railcars outside ticking over in the sun.

Work continues on No.33.  Henrik is renovating one of the interior doors, this one I think belongs to one of the driving cabs.

I continue with the interior of B-end saloon.  Now painting the final part of the ceiling as well as touching up details such as this emergancy light housing.

 

Lasse has fitted new brake hoses at both ends as well as the shut-off valves. (The blue line is the jumper cable for electic power to the heaters in the passenger carriages)

Having re-fitted the hoses, he then charged the air system from our large compressor in order to blow the dust and dirt out of the brake system.  It was good to see something regestering on the gauges for a change.  We also took the chance to re-test the horn ...

 

We continue to fettle the running set for this summers running.  The set should be out every weekend in July and August, I'll post more details soon.

No.37 on the left, No.35 on the right.

The carriages still live outside, hopefully we will get them under cover soon, then we can do something to refresh No880, nearest the camera.

 Our locomotive, No.54 continues to reside at the end of the siding.  Unfortunatly a low priority as there are a scarcity of run-round loops on the modern Roslagsbana and having no passenger seats, it is deadweight in one direction when we run our usual push-pull set.  One day however ...

and one of those other distractions that have kept me busy ...

Constantia in dry dock while we fitted a new false keel ...

 ... and back out under full sail in the Stockholm Archipelago a couple of weeks later.

As ever, all the best from Stockholm, George!