Toplight Coach Group at the Swindon and Cricklade Steam Railway

GWR 7545 Toplight Coach Group News.

August 2004

We have recruited two new workers since the last report. They are Norman Whitworth and Andrew Creaser, and both have recently joined the SCR so that they can work on the GWR Toplight.

Norman worked for many years in several different departments as a coach builder with Ken Hapgood at Swindon works, (they both worked on repairing Toplights when they were in normal everyday service.)

Andrew works as a Woodwork/Metalwork teacher at Farringdon College and initially when he joined the group offered us a quantity of hardwood, and also some other useful tools, including an electric sanding disk and an Engine hoist (could be used for lifting vacuum cylinders etc) .He also worked for many years as a volunteer at the Great Central Railway at Loughborough.

We have recently acquired second hand a number of useful machines. A surface planer, a band saw and a heavy duty mortising machine.

Frame Nick Bailey has been working on the Toilet compartment, paint stripping and sanding to reveal the mahogany match boarding underneath. He has also cut away the partition walling at the bottom so the framing structure underneath can be partly renewed. This has begun to rot underneath where the sink was.
Nick has also done some research at the National Railway Museum and found the Swindon records for the coach, which show the dates when it went into Swindon works and what was done. We know for example that it had gas lighting and incandesant heaters when originally build and was converted to Electric Lighting and steam heating in the 1930s. The records also show the construction costs etc. In the roof of the coach there are large holes where the gas lights were originally fitted to allow the heat to escape.

Potentially of course it could be restored with either gas or electric lighting. There is an 1890s GWR sleeping car being restored at Williton on the West Somerset Railway which has had fully working gas lighting fitted.

Many of the carriage builders at Swindon works had a metal punch with their name on it and they would stamp the parts they worked on. Ken Hapgood still has his stamp from the works so he will stamp some of the bits he has made.
We are restoring some of the interior parts and have found many internal parts which clearly have J Bevington stamped on the back.
I looked on the internet at the census records for 1901 and was able to find the man concerned (John A Bevington), his occupation is listed as Railway coach finisher and he lived at 20 Havelock Street, Swindon (one end of the terraced street seems to have been demolished to make way for the Brunel shopping centre and so the house must have been roughly where "Iceland" is now. He was born in Worcester (the same as me) and was age 41 when the coach was built in 1907. His wife was called Emily, They had 3 sons and 2 daughters (whos names and ages are on the census). I have looked at the directory enquires for Swindon and there are still three Bevingtons living in Swindon, so it could be that they are related. I am sure John Bevington when he made these parts would be very surprised we are restoring them almost 100 years later.

remained frame Mike Bradley has been working on the chassis, removing the footboards, some of the vacuum pipes, steps etc. He has made a vast quantity of new handrails, steps, and metal corner gussets and brackets for the project. So thanks for this. Mike has also sourced many useful tools. Including Needles for the Needle guns, air hoses etc.
We have both made a good start on the chassis, each surface has to be needle gunned, scraped to bare metal and then wire brushed, to remove all loose rust before it is painted using TR Williamsons anti corrosive primer. Some separate pieces have to be removed as there is a tendency for them to have rusted in-between which sometimes can force the plates apart. Also many of the bolts have to be cut through as they have rusted and can not be undone.

I also have had to cut away some of the top surface of the headstock as the plate had rusted very thin. The replacement piece of steel was welded in by Martin Luffman so thanks to him for this.

Ken Hapgood and I took the new Iroko timber for the new corner posts + the patterns to a workshop near Wroughton, and they cut them out on an industrial size band saw. Originally the corner posts were made from 6 inch square timber but we have used two pieces screwed and glued together. Ken has already fitted the first one permanently to the coach including a new piece of bottom side timber and new bolts to hold the body to the chassis. He has also been making repairs to the bottom side where it has rotted along the top and around the doors. I have been learning how to do this to so am doing the next section myself.

Norman is working on the compartment side of the coach. He has dismantled the timber around the toilet walls and is making new sections of framing and repairing other framing components with new pieces of Iroko spliced in. He has made the new section of bottom side timber for the compartment side and it will splice into the existing part which is still ok. For those that don't know the 'bottom side' is the large 3" x 9" inch timbers that run the full length of the coach on each side.

The most important activity that Ken and Norman have been doing is passing the skills on and showing the other group members how to use different tools and do various tasks and repairs and how Swindon works would have done them etc. We are very lucky (and grateful) to have this. It is particularly important that all this type of specialist workshop skills and experience ( Locos, carriages, signals etc) gets passed on (particularly to younger members), otherwise there wont be many people who have the necessary workshop experience to restore and maintain steam locomotives and carriages in future. (Or they will just be "bodged up").

Andrew has only just joined at the time of writing, so it was straight in at the deep end helping us move and set up the (very light) cast iron Mortising machine. (How is the bad back?).
He is going to be working with us on Wednesday nights. Many other people work at the shed on Wednesday evenings, so if you wish to come and work on your project then, then you can and there will be others there.

I have done a leaflet for the group and these are posted around the railway in several places and also at the Steam museum, Gloucs Warwicks Railway etc. (Thanks to Chris Randell for supplying some of the pictures for the leaflet.)

At SVR We have had a couple of "teambuilding" days. The first trip was for a roast dinner at the Toby Carvery in Swindon, and more recently we all went to the Severn Valley Railway where we had a look at the restored toplights (and many other restoration projects).
We were given the full guided tour by Colin Jenkins (one of the SVR C&W full time employees) around the vast coach workshops at Bewdley and Kidderminster including the 2.3 million pound carriage storage depot. The trip was very enjoyable, weather great and we were able to get a lot of useful information and advice from Colin Jenkins.

We have started the sales side to bring in some extra cash, selling magazines etc, so if someone would like to expand this more then that would be great.

Fancy getting involved? We can show you what to do. Much of the work is easy such as sanding and varnishing, wire brushing etc. we are actively looking for more people to get involved. You can contact us on:-
James Faulkner tel 07715 322241 or james75452000@yahoo.com or Nick Bailey on (01242) 604522.


	GWR 7545 Toplight Coach Group News. August 2004 We have recruited two new workers since the last report. They are Norman Whitworth and Andrew Creaser, and both have recently joined the SCR so that they can work on the GWR Toplight. Norman worked for many years in several different departments as a coach builder with Ken Hapgood at Swindon works, (they both worked on repairing Toplights when they were in normal everyday service.) Andrew works as a Woodwork/Metalwork teacher at Farringdon College and initially when he joined the group offered us a quantity of hardwood, and also some other useful tools, including an electric sanding disk and an Engine hoist (could be used for lifting vacuum cylinders etc) .He also worked for many years as a volunteer at the Great Central Railway at Loughborough. We have recently acquired second hand a number of useful machines. A surface planer, a band saw and a heavy duty mortising machine. Nick Bailey has been working on the Toilet compartment, paint stripping and sanding to reveal the mahogany match boarding underneath. He has also cut away the partition walling at the bottom so the framing structure underneath can be partly renewed. This has begun to rot underneath where the sink was. Nick has also done some research at the National Railway Museum and found the Swindon records for the coach, which show the dates when it went into Swindon works and what was done. We know for example that it had gas lighting and incandesant heaters when originally build and was converted to Electric Lighting and steam heating in the 1930s. The records also show the construction costs etc. In the roof of the coach there are large holes where the gas lights were originally fitted to allow the heat to escape. Potentially of course it could be restored with either gas or electric lighting. There is an 1890s GWR sleeping car being restored at Williton on the West Somerset Railway which has had fully working gas lighting fitted. Many of the carriage builders at Swindon works had a metal punch with their name on it and they would stamp the parts they worked on. Ken Hapgood still has his stamp from the works so he will stamp some of the bits he has made. We are restoring some of the interior parts and have found many internal parts which clearly have J Bevington stamped on the back. I looked on the internet at the census records for 1901 and was able to find the man concerned (John A Bevington), his occupation is listed as Railway coach finisher and he lived at 20 Havelock Street, Swindon (one end of the terraced street seems to have been demolished to make way for the Brunel shopping centre and so the house must have been roughly where "Iceland" is now. He was born in Worcester (the same as me) and was age 41 when the coach was built in 1907. His wife was called Emily, They had 3 sons and 2 daughters (whos names and ages are on the census). I have looked at the directory enquires for Swindon and there are still three Bevingtons living in Swindon, so it could be that they are related. I am sure John Bevington when he made these parts would be very surprised we are restoring them almost 100 years later. Mike Bradley has been working on the chassis, removing the footboards, some of the vacuum pipes, steps etc. He has made a vast quantity of new handrails, steps, and metal corner gussets and brackets for the project. So thanks for this. Mike has also sourced many useful tools. Including Needles for the Needle guns, air hoses etc. We have both made a good start on the chassis, each surface has to be needle gunned, scraped to bare metal and then wire brushed, to remove all loose rust before it is painted using TR Williamsons anti corrosive primer. Some separate pieces have to be removed as there is a tendency for them to have rusted in-between which sometimes can force the plates apart. Also many of the bolts have to be cut through as they have rusted and can not be undone. I also have had to cut away some of the top surface of the headstock as the plate had rusted very thin. The replacement piece of steel was welded in by Martin Luffman so thanks to him for this. Ken Hapgood and I took the new Iroko timber for the new corner posts + the patterns to a workshop near Wroughton, and they cut them out on an industrial size band saw. Originally the corner posts were made from 6 inch square timber but we have used two pieces screwed and glued together. Ken has already fitted the first one permanently to the coach including a new piece of bottom side timber and new bolts to hold the body to the chassis. He has also been making repairs to the bottom side where it has rotted along the top and around the doors. I have been learning how to do this to so am doing the next section myself. Norman is working on the compartment side of the coach. He has dismantled the timber around the toilet walls and is making new sections of framing and repairing other framing components with new pieces of Iroko spliced in. He has made the new section of bottom side timber for the compartment side and it will splice into the existing part which is still ok. For those that don't know the 'bottom side' is the large 3" x 9" inch timbers that run the full length of the coach on each side. The most important activity that Ken and Norman have been doing is passing the skills on and showing the other group members how to use different tools and do various tasks and repairs and how Swindon works would have done them etc. We are very lucky (and grateful) to have this. It is particularly important that all this type of specialist workshop skills and experience ( Locos, carriages, signals etc) gets passed on (particularly to younger members), otherwise there wont be many people who have the necessary workshop experience to restore and maintain steam locomotives and carriages in future. (Or they will just be "bodged up"). Andrew has only just joined at the time of writing, so it was straight in at the deep end helping us move and set up the (very light) cast iron Mortising machine. (How is the bad back?). He is going to be working with us on Wednesday nights. Many other people work at the shed on Wednesday evenings, so if you wish to come and work on your project then, then you can and there will be others there. I have done a leaflet for the group and these are posted around the railway in several places and also at the Steam museum, Gloucs Warwicks Railway etc. (Thanks to Chris Randell for supplying some of the pictures for the leaflet.) We have had a couple of "teambuilding" days. The first trip was for a roast dinner at the Toby Carvery in Swindon, and more recently we all went to the Severn Valley Railway where we had a look at the restored toplights (and many other restoration projects). We were given the full guided tour by Colin Jenkins (one of the SVR C&W full time employees) around the vast coach workshops at Bewdley and Kidderminster including the 2.3 million pound carriage storage depot. The trip was very enjoyable, weather great and we were able to get a lot of useful information and advice from Colin Jenkins. We have started the sales side to bring in some extra cash, selling magazines etc, so if someone would like to expand this more then that would be great. Fancy getting involved? We can show you what to do. Much of the work is easy such as sanding and varnishing, wire brushing etc. we are actively looking for more people to get involved. You can contact us on:- James Faulkner tel 07715 322241 or james75452000@yahoo.com or Nick Bailey on (01242) 604522.