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Wednesday 9am - 8pm Saturday 9am - 5pm

Bluebell Railway SR Coach Group

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Bluebell Railway SR Coach Group

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We are restoring the railway's unique collection of Southern Railway Maunsell and Bulleid coaches.

31/10/2026

A large group with 13 of us today plus Laurie from the wagon gang who assisted with removing bushes from the bogie.

Alex made a start on fitting those seat supports that won't be in the way of bolts holding the body to the underframe (access to these is required so we can re-bolt the body to the underframe after the body has been lifted). This task proved more difficult than expected.

The two Davids continued preparing panels, and a team pressed on with final cleaning up of mouldings prior to varnishing.

28/10/2026

Today's second post showing other work progressing. Tony was busy in the varnish shop. Julian and Keith were working on the bogie and Simon continued with repairs to the South West Corner.
Tom continued working on our wheelsets.

Not forgetting to mention, Sam W and Steve who were also hard at work, and David R and Rob who were working on the new bottom sheeting.

Thanks also to the ladies in the trim shop who produced two replacement luggage nets for Compartment H and Stuart of the permanent staff who brought the "Garbo" press from it's storage on top of a container back to the floor in E road so that David R and Rob could use it in production of the new bottom side sheeting.

28/10/2026

Rob centre punching the positions for drilling the new bottom panel.

28/10/2026

The first of a couple of posts from today. A start was made on cutting metal for the replacement bottom sheets. First the position of the holes was marked out using the original sheet as a template. These are then centre punced and a pilot hole drilled.
Next the rebate for the door striker plate had to be cut out and then the sheet offered up to the frame to allow it to be marked for trimming to final size and for the pilot holes in the frame for the screws to be drilled using the sheet as a template.

Then it's cut to size on the guillotine and the holes re-drilled to full size. Then the holes are effectively countersunk on the sheet using a nifty little press (the "Garbo"), the holes in the frame are countersunk as well and then the panel has it's final trial fitting. Given that only Rob has had any prior experience of this and that was probably 25 years ago, we were really pleased with our efforts.

24/10/2026

Today, for various reasons there were not very many of us working on 971.

David C and Roy did some final preparation on mouldings prior to dispatching them to the varnish shop where David R and Tony spent some time varnishing the mouldings.

Steve made some repairs to a couple of planks from the end partitions in Compartments A and K.

Keith finished the final undercoating in Compartment K (subject to a final check that we have not missed anything else).

21/10/2026

Simon with the biscuit jointer in action - see our main post today for an explanation of what a biscuit jointer is.

21/10/2026

Another busy day. Simon carried on with seat manufacture and used the biscuit jointer (The captions to the pictures explain what a biscuit jointer is). Mouldings and panels are now being replaced in Compartments G and J.

Tony spent some time in the varnish shop so we should soon have some more mouldings to re-fit. Others carried on with more final cleaning prior to varnishing and Tim got a second undercoat onto Compartment K (we had thought we'd finished this , but a further check today showed we had missed this one).

20/10/2026

Bluebell Railway Chairman, Paul Everington's opening remarks to Saturday's SR Coach Group meeting. He stressed his commitment to heritage which went down very well with the meeting.

18/10/2026

With Bluebell Railway Carriage Shop – I just got recognised as one of their top fans! 🎉

18/10/2026

Many thanks to Bluebell Railway Carriage Shop for their continued support.

The Carriage Shop team are delighted to have been able to support two more Bluebell Railway projects this weekend.

£500 to the Bluebell Railway SR Coach Group
£500 to the Bluebell Railway Goods Division

Address

Horsted Keynes Station
Haywards Heath
RH177BB

Opening Hours

Wednesday	9am - 8pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm

Website

https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/sr-coach-group/

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