At last, another update!

At last, another update!

The straps that originally held the reserve battery box in place had long ago disintigrated.  To source replacements we went to a horse tack maker who produced two beautiful belts for us, not cheep but these should be good for the next 100 years or so!

Here is the battery box in its place with the seat fixed for the last time (we hope!)

The seats against the middle partition have heaters under them.  It was felt that, especially with the enclosed area behind the seat, this could lead to damage to the wall.

We therefore fitted heat deflectors to the wall and to fill the gap behind the seat.  These are of some sort of bakelite like material.

In final place.

Calle manufactured a replacement lid for the junction box on the converter, I then painted it up in blue hammerite.

 A striking colour to be sure, but that is what the original converter is painted under all that brake dust, honest!  It will soon fade down with its own covering of brake dust. 

 So that is all the seats fixed down for the final time!  A large number of small jobs to finish, mainly touching up and fitting details.  Elsewhere several of our group have painted out the graffiti on our goods/brake van as well as carried out a number of maintainance jobs on the running set ahead of this summers running.  We had originally planned to swap this railcar for No.37, the next candidate for attention, at the end of this month and complete the commissioning of No.33 in our running shed.  Unfortunatly the clearance in our workshop is insufficient to get a railcar in with the pantographs in place so No.37 would have to have those removed, effectivly removing it from traffic before No.33 was clear.  We have therefore decided to wait until until after the summer running before doing this swap.

And finally, we start our new drivers young in Sweden!  Actually, we took part in the annual Tågsläpp organised by the Swedish National Railway museum last week.  This is an annual open doors event where most of the preservation groups open their workshops and host behind-the-scenes events. Here is my wee boy checking out thedrivers position on No.33.  He can see over the desk, just, but fortunatly can not reach the dead-mans-peddle yet!