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.

Monday 28 November 2016

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.


 



Tuesday 8 November 2016

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!

Sunday 9 October 2016

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!





Thursday 9 June 2016

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!

Monday 11 April 2016

TågSläpp 2016

On the 24th of April, we will as usual be participating in the annual "Behind the Scenes" event organised by the Swedish Friends of the National Railway Museum:



Here is a direct link to the original poster with clickable links to individual organisations.

If you are in the area (or indeed near any of the participating organisations) please drop in and have a look around.  We will even provide coffee!

In anticipation, last week we started a major tidy-up of our shed and railcars:



We hope to see some of you on the 24th, best regards, George!

A grand day out

On a recent trip back to Scotland my father and I took a day trip down into Northumberland and Cumbria to Alston.


Alston is the home to the South Tynedale Railway, a 2' gauge line built on the trackbed of an old North Eastern Railway branchline.


Much of the old standard gauge infrastructure remains or has been recreated.


I was particularly pleased to find the engine of the day was Barber, built 1908 by Thomas Green of Leeds.


Green's did not build many engines and I believe this is the only one operating and the only one left in the northern hemisphere


The engine is ex-Harrogate Gasworks, which had low clearance in the works, hence the odd shaped cab.


The wagon, a representative of the hopper wagons used by the gas works but built on an ex-war department chassis, houses the compressor for the airbrakes.  During restoration it was decided not to spoil the outline of the engine by mounting the pump on the locomotive itself.


The railway runs a variety of home built stock, and one ex. Sierra Leone carriage, in this attractive livery, based on the old North Eastern Railway I believe.


Both the big plus (in terms of conservation) and minus in terms of photography) is the large amount of covered accommodation that the railway has.  They do open the works to visitors when they have personnel available, but not during our visit.

Still, there are quite a few interesting wagons around the site


An old Hunslet mine locomotive acts as gate guardian.


The museum in the old goods shed is also worth a visit.  A real gloryhole type of museum, short on interpretation but a huge amount of interesting material stuffed into the shed.  they are very happy for you to poke around, handle most things and are always happy to answer questions.



The width of the viaduct betrays the lines origins.  The Standard gauge dimensions of the line means there is plenty of room for a lineside footpath, great for photography and just watching the trains go by.