The above picture shows two of the 'Derby' trailer vehicles at Pentrefelin, both of which were built at British Railways' Derby Works but to slightly different styles.
On the right is 56223 which was built in early 1959 and features a destination display for the benefit of passengers in the roof dome.
On the left is 54504 which was built in late 1960 to a later design that included the large 4-character headcode panel (now blanked over) which was used to show signallers the identity of the train including its class (express or stopping)and designated route. The destination display for the benefit of passengers is lower down behind the middle window.
Information about the the recent use of our railcars can be found in 'Out and About' below, and information about some aspects of their maintenance and restoration can be found under 'Unit-specific work' below.
Since the previous report the class 108 has operated a few 'Timetable A' duties. As usual, most of them were 'One train working' but there was an unusual one on Saturday 15 March when it shared the 'train set' with a wedding charter that was hauled by Pannier Tank no. 7754. The following pictures show the class 108 waiting to be passed by, and being passed by, the wedding charter at Carrog...
A day later the Pannier Tank was used on the normal passenger service but was failed at Berwyn, from where it was rescued by class 08 no. 08202 (cf 'Duck' being rescued by 'Diesel' in the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' stories)...
Meanwhile a phone call had been received asking if we could provide a DMU as a substitute. As luck would have it some members of the group were busy working at Pentrefelin so one of them dropped what he was doing and nipped into the costume department to be transformed, Mr Benn-style *, from a fitter to a driver, prior to scrambling the Hybrid class 127/108...
* I wonder how many of our readers remember the adventures of Mr Benn?: https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/february/mr-benn
The following pictures show the hybrid unit working the 15.15 Llangollen-Corwen, firstly approaching, and passing, Pentrefelin...
...and later arriving at Glyndyfrdwy (picture courtesy of Railcam UK Ltd.)...
A length of aluminium bead was fitted vertically on the back wall over the joint of the panels and some white beading was fitted to the ceiling...
A considerable amount of 'elbow grease' went into cleaning the external wall panels on the toilet with the result that they are now gleaming and match the new panels as shown by the following 'before' and 'after' pictures...
The lower wall section/upstand was given a final coat of brown paint...
As has already been reported, the driver's desk was removed from the power car (50416) in December because moisture had caused the Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) to swell to several times its thickness.
With the desk missing, there is a rare opportunity to see some of the 'gubbins' and the wildlife that lives underneath it...
A new desk is now being constructed, using a more appropriate type of timber, and painted black...
The life-expired desk can be seen in the background of both of the above pictures.
The bodywork repairs to the trailer car (56171) continued with the discovery that some areas were in a worse condition than originally anticipated...
The roof of the power car (50416) received some more paint...
The restoration of the trailer car (56097) continued with the cutting and fitting of the last two main ceiling panels...
...and the installation of the beading that hides the joint between the ceiling and the wall panels (to the left of the orange elbow in the picture below) and the last two light fittings...
Another lamp holder was repaired in readiness for future use...
At the end of the vehicle near the toilet, some work went into the construction of the timber framework needed for the flat section of ceiling under the water tank...
Finally, more progress was made with the termination of electrical connections under the desk in the cab....
Thanks to Allen Chatwood, John Joyce, Mike Martin and Martin Plumb for supplying the pictures that were used in this edition.