This is British Railways Mark 1 Coach K&ESR No. 68; BR No. 4355. This vehicle has been at Bodiam for some time and arrived in the works looking the worst for wear!

Some idea of the corrosion can be seen in this shot of one of the coach ends. There is plenty of opportunity for Alan to show his skills with metalwork!

Badly corroded areas of steel panel are cut out for replacement later

This process also exposes rusted sections of the framework on which the steel panels are secured

These are renewed, welded into place and then painted

Alan marks out a new section of panelling for the Mark 1 coach. Behind him the vestibule section repairs are clearly visible.

This photo captures the point where one piece of side panel is in place whilst the next section along the side awaits re-cladding.

Here is a more detailed view of the interior work on the Mark 1’s Robertsbridge end. New steelwork supports the corridor connections.

By the end of September ’07 good progress is seen in the extensive repair of the end and sides of the Robertsbridge end of the Mark 1

This work is put on hold for remedial attention to this coach bogie and its wheels

By the end of this update period (October ’07) the west end of the carriage is painted in undercoat and the windows back in place.

The SE&CR coach No 2947 in the works but almost finished in the final days of July 07

And here the SE&CR Carriage is seen in traffic at Northiam station as part of the vintage train set. Doesn’t it look magnificent again?

Progress on the Ashford coach becomes less apparent from the outside as time is spent on the internal condition of the coach.

The door frames of the Ashford coach receive attention

The interior work on the Ashford Coach can be clearly seen here with planking and roof timbers cleaned up.

Work on the Birdcage coach (K&ESR No. 61 - SE&CR No 1100 seems to have been going on for ever!! Recently a tremendous amount of work has gone into renewing and refitting the doors.

Julian works here at some tricky refabrication work on the doors. Damaged and unsound sections of doors have to be renewed and then fettled to fit each doorway in turn - painstaking work.

The task is almost over as completed doors are lined up ready for fitting on the Birdcage coach.

On this occasion I found Boris at work on the Birdcage. Hidden work is obviously, no less important because it can’t be seen. Getting the lighting fittings wired up in an old carriage is a challenging task Boris remarked.

Ahh!!!! That looks much better - the doors are hung on the Birdcage at last. The end of the project seems so much nearer than it did!

I peer into the guard’s compartment for this shot. More progress is made as the various fittings are added like the emergency cord apparatus apparent in each of the passenger compartments.

Another shot of the Birdcage guard’s van with one half of the doors hung on this side. This task is complicated by the fact that the coach has suffered damage during its career and things are not as “square” and “true” as could be wished.

Brian works on the station side of the Birdcage coach, fittings the door locks ready for permanent fixing of the door trim