News from SANRASM December 2011

[John Ashworth]

Now the frantic pace of safeguarding and repairing and repainting
SANRASM's stock has slowed somewhat due to the Christmas break there's a
bit of time to show a few of the highlights of our recent efforts. A
Newsletter is in the course of preparation and will appear shortly.

Not that's all that goes on, there's continually reviewing site
security, patrolling outside both sites, cutting grass, sorting out
fallen trees, especially those that fall across the fence, killing
snakes and loads of other tasks that aren't directly preservation.

Major efforts have been made with Shashi. The entire floor is suffering
from wet rot and will be removed and replaced, about a third has been
done already. This involves removing the tables, seats etc, a big job in
itself. The ceiling also suffered from water damage and all the
hardboard panels will need to be replaced as will some of the ceiling
boards. All the lights have gone and will need to be rewired and
replaced, and the wall panels will also have to be renewed. We've
discovered that the textured material is actually rexine, which it is
hoped can be replaced with similar blue material to match the seats
which all need to be re-covered.

A most important task has been the renewal of several metres of teak
waist rail which has rotted badly. Replacement teak was sourced from
scrapped coach bodies and sent to SA Timber in Booysens who did the
profiling to match the rest. Colin Jenkins, an expert coach builder with
40 years of wooden coaching restoration much of it on the Severn Valley
Railway in the UK has been supervising this and other jobs.

E-13 2123 has had its roof remalthoided and painted. One side of the
exterior has been patched and repainted, a new kit of parts for a set of
droplights has arrived and will be assembled and fitted shortly. We went
to a lot of trouble to try to match the original paint colour with, I
think, some success. This coach has some major problems in one end and
also the bottom stringer has rot and damage on one side.

Wesvaal has had a great deal of the roof timbers replaced including one
whole side of the clerestory. Sounds straightforward but there are some
odd angles around the cant rail/gutter area as well as some distortion
along the entire roof length. In fact there are two different
construction methods along the whole length which makes replacement of
timber a long job. Half the malthoid has been replaced, we're currently
waiting for more material from our suppliers.

Phantom Pass had all the old malthoid removed and replaced, but only
after a lot of rotten timber has been removed and new timber fitted.

All this and more has been going on to try to secure the future of
SANRASM's assets. Once the coach roofs are weatherproof then work can
continue on repairing the ravages of time and weather on the exteriors
and restoring the interiors which have suffered from theft and vandalism
as well as water ingress.

But it's a far dry from the doom, gloom and dereliction which was the
norm twelve months ago. Even the security situation has improved thanks
to some fancy solar lighting, changes of security personnel and roving
patrols around the area.

Here's wishing everyone a happy, prosperous and healthy 2012.

Regards
Geoff Pethick

[Derek Walker]

Bravo Geoff and the team. I go around there every now and then and each time I do something has changed. I look forward to the day when those coaches are as close as new that they can come, and I know who we will be able to thank.