Claire Sheppy writes It is with great sadness, that I announce the death on Sunday, December 5th of Chris van den Arend, long-time supporter of the West Somerset Railway in various guises, and particularly well-known for his work in the restoration of the sleeping car currently in the gauge Museum at Bishops Lydeard, and most recently with the installation of the footbridge at Williton. Since learning of Chris's death, I have received a number of tributes to him, and am including some of them here. "He was one of those people, so rare nowadays, that appeared to not have a jot of malice in him and with his passing there goes one of the railway's pioneers at a time when such continuity is needed." "Such a lovely man and so generous with his knowledge and passion for the railway. I do hope there can be at least a plaque bearing his name on the footbridge, he was such a driving force on the project that there should be some way of commemorating him in relation to the bridge" "Chris was a central player in the hard work which enabled the Railway to re-open in 1976 and later became Administrative Director in those early years. Latterly many will know Chris as Station Master at Williton and through his work with the Steam Trust, especially on the Sleeping Car. ..............The obvious memorials will be the Sleeping Car and the Williton Footbridge but many will know that Chris's legacy is, in fact, the entire Railway - and its community - which has prospered from his tireless, gentle, energy. " I myself will miss Chris enormously. I shall always think of him as a good friend to me, always ready to listen and to give advice when requested. And as a result I became very fond of him. But I wanted to let Chris himself have the last word here. Below is the very last e-mail which he sent to me and to others who were currently closely involved with the heritage carriages project: " We were fortunate with the Sleeping Car that it had been in the dry for fifty years. I think coaches that have been in the open a lot - not uncommon for railway coaches! - should be approached with suspicion. 3639 looked quite good in the old days at Minehead and was in use for accomodation. I agree that it is an absolute must to examine what we have very carefully. 5856 is sure to have hidden snags. The body work MIGHT be as good as 6705. They have spent a similar time in the weather I imagine. But we seem to have extremely useful pieces of interior worth, I am sure,.many thousands. We would never have completed the Sleeping Car without all the "spares" from 9039 at Didcot. We need very full examination of all our coaches both on and off the WSR." Wise words indeed, and I hope that all who knew Chris will continue to carry on the work that he has left off, so that we can make this project a success. It will be another fitting memorial to him. Chris's funeral will be held at West Bagborough Parish Church, on Thursday 16th of December at 2pm.

9 December 2010

Claire Sheppy writes As you can see, Chris made mention of Didcot in his last e-mail to me, so it is fitting that I am now in a position to announce that we shall be visiting Didcot railway centre on Sunday, February 20, 2011 and will be given a guided tour of the centre. I have yet to finish negotiating a visit to the coach in which I am particularly interested, namely TK 4553 the bow ended corridor coach destined eventually to come to the West Somerset railway. People interested in joining us on this trip are invited to contact me via info@wssrt.co.uk

9 December 2010

Claire Sheppy reports on 16 November 2010: It is proposed to have a visit to Didcot Railway Centre on either the 19th or 20th of February, 2011, which is one of their steaming days, where we will be given a guided tour of the centre, and will also have the opportunity to have a look at the bow ended corridor coach TK 4553, which will eventually come to the West Somerset Railway, in exchange for TK 2578, currently at Minehead. Mike Dunse and I also intend to have a look at the bow ended corridor coach BTK 5131, currently at Washford, the reason being that as TK 4546, currently in Williton concrete works yard, contains sufficient internal compartmentation to make the internal restoration of TK 4553 or BTK 5131 rather more feasible than some of the other coaches on the West Somerset railway, we wanted to have a look at both the coach at Didcot and the coach at Washford to establish the practicality of this. Would anyone who is interested in joining the visit to Didcot, (which will definitely take place, as we already have four people interested in going), please contact us at info@wssrt.co.uk, costs will be £8 adult, £7.50 for 60+ and £7 for children, plus a contribution to fuel costs, unless we opt to go by train, in which case you would need to make your own arrangements to get there.

Walt Denning reports on 16 November 2010: Work on TK 6705 is making good progress and that it is hoped to transfer the coach to Somerset towards the end of February. Work that has been carried out recently includes woodwork around the tanks being replaced and ventilators reinstated. The gutters have been replaced but require further work. All the windows have now been repaired but are awaiting glazing, and a great deal of work has been done to the various metalwork items, which now await painting with etching primer. The corridor connections have been removed, and the underframe has been painted in gloss black. Inside the coach, the compartments have been stripped and panels removed from the ceiling, some of these may be able to be reused but some will require replacing. Stripping of paintwork has been particularly onerous as a job, because it was inadvisable to use a blowtorch to remove the paint due to fire risk, and hot air guns just caused the paint to turn into a sticky gunge. Most of the picture frames have been refurbished, and new ones made for the ones which were beyond repair. It is also intended to carry out some of the internal electrical rewiring whilst the coach is at Crewe. Painting work to the exterior of the coach will have to wait due to the cold weather, but some interior painting and varnish work can be carried out. When the coach arrives at Williton, there will still be further work to be carried out, these jobs include refurbishing the bogies, replacing the corridor connections, replacing the draw gear, further work to the electrical installation, and reupholstery."

The West Somerset Steam Railway Trust Heritage coaches display board will be on display at Williton station on the Friday1st of October, Saturday 2nd of October and Sunday 3rd of October of the Autumn Gala. On this board will be found copies of the first two drawings prepared of TK 5856, the full corridor third coach built to diagram C 67 lot 1527, which it is proposed to be the next in line for restoration, once 6705, currently at Crewe, has come to Somerset. Additionally, I shall be at Williton on Friday 1st of October and possibly on Sunday 3rd of October as well, and will be in the Williton waiting-room for some of the time, working on one of the smaller drawings, and will welcome people to come and interrupt me to talk about the project or to ask questions. Additionally, I will be able to show people around the coaches (outsides only at present), by request. On Saturday, 2nd October Jennie Dunse will be fulfilling a similar role, although she will not be working on any drawings.

Claire Sheppy
25 September 2010

Claire Sheppy writes on 3 September 2010:

Jennie and Mike Dunse and I are planning on carrying out another session measuring heritage coaches during the middle of September. Those readers of this site who are also members of the West Somerset Railway Association and who therefore receive the Journal may like to know that there is an article within the latest journal concerning our experiences with TK4546. However, this coach is not our main priority, that remains the drawing of TK 5856, the coach, a photo of which appeared in the Spring edition (Number 130 of the Journal), that has come from Tintern, with measuring helped by its sister, TK 5929. Of necessity, all of the actual measuring is done on site, in this case, at Williton, but in fact I do much of the actual drawing at home, in my conservatory, as the light is so good in it! I try to carry out a certain amount of drawing (or calculation) at least once every day. The accompanying photograph shows (on the drawing table) the drawing of the corridor side structural members, steel panelling drawing, and plan, whilst alongside it, in front of the four section folding ladder, is its companion drawing dealing with the compartment side structural members and steel panelling, and in the top left hand corner of the drawing, the coach end bearers and external attachments drawing. It is hoped to have copies of these two drawings on display at the Autumn Gala. I shall then go on and produce detail drawings of the each structural member, complete with joint details. After that will come the drawings of the interior compartmentation members, then other items, such as the water tanks, other fittings, wiring diagram,etc. The drawing table came courtesy of John Griffin as a result of my appeal in January 2009, to whom I extend my thanks for this donation. Open at one of the pages of the next nearest coach to the one that I am drawing, is my copy of the book on GWR coaches by John Lewis. These are reproduced to modelling scales and it is quite difficult to read the dimensions, hence the magnifying glass. But I have made contact with John Lewis himself, who may be able to help with larger versions of these drawings. However we are actually making good progress just by measuring the full size coaches. And somewhere in the pile of drawings is the embryo drawing of TK4546, (in pencil at this stage,) following on from which, in due course, the various detail drawings for the coach will be produced. This coach too has a sister, (ie same lot number) currently at Didcot. Doing the drawing itself is the comparatively easy bit, it is the puzzling over all the dimensions, working out which ones are the correct ones, and then making sure that they total to the stated length of the coach. So in the top left hand corner, under the compasses, by the inevitable calculator, is a page of reconciliation calculations, done to the nearest one eighth of an inch, a large tolerance in engineering terms, but not when working with wood. And as with the original GWR drawings, all dimensions are taken and drawn in feet and inches.

Drawing progress on Coach no 5856. © Claire Sheppy

Claire Sheppy writes on 1 August 2010:

"On Saturday 24th July, at fairly short notice, as we were not intending to do any more actual surveying until September, Jennie Dunse and I reconvened at Williton to carry out a further measurement session on the coaches. This time it was the bow ended corridor coach which was to receive attention; that is TK 4546. Having had a brief look at it on our previous visit on 27th June, and having been told by Jennie's husband Mike that it had a fair amount of internal partition work, I had in fact been quite excited by what I had seen, deplorable condition or not, so I was really keen to get to grips with measuring this coach, because so much of the way that it is constructed is actually able to be seen. It was certainly going to be a very interesting and productive session, because after lunch Mike joined us, and having made good progress with just two of us in the morning, we really started to make inroads into the measurements, in fact I ended up coming back home with a set of sketches and measurements which hopefully will enable me to prepare the basic structural drawing of the structural timbers for both sides and ends of the coaches, and all of the partition work, and in addition to that we were able to measure up the seat bearers, and indeed even one of the seats, and one of the water tanks. A much fuller account of this particular coach and its recent history will hopefully be going to appear in the WSR journal. I should also mention that Michael Bradley of the Swindon and Cricklade Toplight Group has been in touch, and has provided me with a few drawings, many thanks to him for this. Whilst I intend to re-draw many of these I am always pleased to receive further drawings and information; offers of spare parts are also gratefully received but should be addressed to the project leader."

Some of the several doors of TK 4546. © Claire Sheppy

Claire Sheppy writes on 1 July 2010:

"On Sunday June 27th a start was made by Jennie and Mike Dunse and myself on measuring all of the coaches that currently reside in the former concrete works part of the Williton yard. At present there are five of them, namely TK3631, a Toplight coach built to diagram C28, Lot 1136, (the same lot as TK 3639, the one currently in the Swindon shed, which coach will probably have to come out of it to make way for something else, such as Collett 6705, currently at Crewe); TK 3665, also Diagram C28; TK4546, a Collett era bow-ended Corridor to diagram C54 lot 1352; and two Collett era Full Corridor Thirds built 1935, numbers TK 5929 and TK 5986, both built to diagram dia C67 lot 1527. " "Because coach TK 5986 (the coach that came from Tintern) is generally considered to be in the best condition of the five, we concentrated initially on this coach. However TK 5929 has had all of its internal lining removed, which means that it has been possible to measure its structural timbers. Theroretically this therefore provides all the necessary information for the structural timbers for TK 5986. It would be nice (In some ways!) if it were that simple, for we straight away discovered that both coaches ( both of which have almost certainly been in departmental use at some stage) have had alterations, in the shape of double doors being substituted, and to make matters more interesting, the one had double doors fitted on the corridor side and the other on the compartment side. I therefore intend to draw the coaches as they were originally designed and built, but also to show the variations, for in these days of disabled access being desirable it is just possible that the double doors on the one coach might be retained." "I said 'in some ways' because it is the variations that make the task of measuring and then drawing the coaches all the more interesting. Puzzling all this out can be likened to having several boxes of the same jigsaw, where all of them have some pieces missing. But as it is not possible to know exactly which pieces are actually missing, the only way is to do each jigsaw until the picture is clearer, even with pieces missing. In my case, this means drawing out each coach, using information from measurements of other coaches as a guide to fill in the gaps, until the picture (ie the drawing) is complete." "At the end of the day, we then went into TK 4546. This coach is in a deplorable state but even so it is capable of providing a lot of useful information, for it is the only coach that I have seen so far (until 6705 comes south) that has any of its compartmentation remaining. It also has its water tank which can be measured and drawn as a pattern for others. " "It is for this reason that it is absoluteluy essential that none of the coaches are destroyed any more then they have been already, until every last piece of information concerning them has been rescued." "Jennie, Mike and I resolved to reconvene at the beginning of September for another session, in the meantime I shall spend part of the rest of the summer fathoming out and then using all the information that we obtained on Sunday. " "And finally, if anyone has any drawings already of any of the coaches mentioned, (especially coach interiors) or indeed for any of the other coaches for the intended WSR heritage fleet, then please send me copies of them. I know that a lot of well intentioned people have suggested going to various sources, indeed I have already written to them all, but the bottom line is that I can actually measure and draw from our full size examples here on the WSR quicker than I can acheive by spending more time writing, (mostly in vain) for drawings from other sources."

Discussing sketch drawing of TK 5929 structural timbers. © Mike Dunse

Measuring the corridor side of TK 5856. © Mike Dunse

Measuring the roof structure of TK 5929. © Mike Dunse

Measuring the coach end of TK 5856. © Mike Dunse

A three coach rake of heritage carriages could be running on the Minehead Branch by 2012. With Stage One (acquisition of candidate carriages) completed, Stage Two of the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust's Heritage Carriages Project is currently planned to be a rake of three vehicles. The likely contenders would be GWR BCK no 6705 (currently under restoration at Crewe and due to be completed in 2010) and two further carriages - probably TK no 5856 and another TK yet to be identified. These could be restored fairly quickly and, assuming the cash can be raised, could be completed by 2012. Thus the Railway could have the Olympic Set running - named after another event taking place the same year. It is estimated each TK would cost approx £125K to restore to running order meaning only £250K needs to be raised to have a three coach branch line set completed.

10 May 2010

David Holmes writes

The Heritage Carriage Project led by the West Somerset Steam Trust has ambitious plans to restore a rake of GWR carriages.

Whilst 6705, brought back from the USA, in currently under restoration at Crewe some of the other coaches owned by the project are in store at various locations.

Five of these are currently stored at Williton.

Three have been standing in the car park of Williton Restorations since delivery some fifteen months ago and as they were providing a serious impediment it was important to move them to a more suitable location.

An area of land was cleared and lightly ballasted late last Autumn and the coach recovered from Tintern was the first to be positioned on this area before wet weather made it too soft to move any others.
The recent dry spell has hardened the ground and allowed the move to be carried out. This weekend two of the carriages have been re-located from the car park onto sections of rail laid directly on the ground. The team used a JCB to tow the carriages across the Tarmac until the reached the ballast edge. The front bogie was steered by the direction of the JCB and the trailing one using a winch to apply a sideways pull as required. Once close to the ballast pairs of short rails were laid on their side and the wheel flanges run into the web. As the carriages moved forward rails were lifted from behind and run around to the front in a scene reminiscent of a cartoon scene! Sadly time intervened and the third coach remains in the car park for he moment although its track awaits and it will join the others in a few short weeks once the team have regained their strength. Moving these coaches will allow the HCP to begin to properly assess and start preparation and conservation on these historic vehicles. If you would like to get involved with this project please contact Ian Colby c/o The WSSRT, Williton Station.


9 May 2010