BR 4545 Tourist Standard Open

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BRBritish Rail or British Railways 4545 Tourist Standard Open
BR 4545 20150320.jpg
BRBritish Rail or British Railways Tourist Standard Open 4545
Built By BRBritish Rail or British Railways York
Status In service
Number E4545
Livery BRBritish Rail or British Railways Crimson & Cream
Other numbers NE4545
History
Built 1956
Diagram 93
Lot 30243
Type TSO
TOPS code AC21
Seats 64 standard
1983 Preserved on SVRSevern Valley Railway
1985 Repainted in maroon livery
2001 Repainted in crimson and cream livery

Carriages

E4545 is a BRBritish Rail or British Railways Mark 1 Tourist Second Open (TSO), commonly referred to as an 'Open Second', and later re-named as Tourist Standard Open when BRBritish Rail or British Railways rebranded Second class as Standard class during the 1980s. The designation "Tourist" referred to the use of 2+2 seating either side of a central aisle, as opposed to the 'ordinary' Standard Open (SO) which had 3 seats across, arranged 2+1 with an offset aisle. In practice the TSO was BRBritish Rail or British Railways's default Open Second design with relatively few Mark 1 SOs being built, mainly for use as Second/Third class restaurant cars.[note 1]

The 'Open Second' includes 8 'bays', each with two tables seating 4 people, giving a total capacity of 64. One end of the coach has a larger cross-vestibule than the other in order to incorporate two toilets, with the external doors at that end being inset from the end of the coach to accommodate these. A third cross-vestibule was included midway down the coach to enable speedier loading and unloading of passengers.

Service

4545 was built at York in 1956 to diagram number 93 (AC204), lot number 30243. It entered service on the North Eastern Region in March 1957. Carriages in that region initially shared the Eastern Region E prefix, receiving their own "NE" prefix during the 1960s, before reverting to the "E" prefix when the North Eastern and Eastern Regions were amalgamated in 1968. E4545 became NE4545 between January 1966 and January 1968. It was eventually withdrawn from service in 1982[1] at Neville Hill, Leeds[2].

Preservation

During 1982-83 the SVRSevern Valley Railway acquired six TSOs in anticipation of the extra traffic which would be generated by the Kidderminster extension.[3][note 2]. E4545 was the fourth of the six, arriving on the SVRSevern Valley Railway from Neville Hill on 14 March 1983. All six TSOs were in working order and needed only minimal attention before entering service, still carrying their BRBritish Rail or British Railways blue and grey livery.[4]

Three of the TSOs including E4545 were all repainted into BR maroon livery during September 1985. All were finished in the late 1960s version of that livery with red ends and gutters and cream end doors, although they did not immediately receive the BRBritish Rail or British Railways 'cycling lion' badge, the C&WCarriage & Wagon Department having run out of the transfers at the time.[5] The following year 4555 was one of three coaches in the maroon set to be given a full complement of tables (recovered from 4550) to help cope with the increasing dining party use that the BRBritish Rail or British Railways maroon set was seeing that year.[6] In Autumn 1988 4545 was noted as being "remarkable for being unremarkable with no distinguishing rust problems yet".[7]

During 1992 the gangways of LMSLondon Midland & Scottish Railway 27218 and 4545 were damaged during a shunting accident. A new gangway for 4545 was made at Kidderminster by modifying a spare gangway using parts taken from a scrapped RBR at Rugby.[8]

By late 1993 4545 was still in service but had 'faded to pink' with the interior also being in a 'shocking state'. It entered Bewdley paint shop in summer 1994 for an overhaul which included repairs to both gangways, the end framework, and re-skinning of the ends and corners. Work was then sidelined on October while a contract job was carried out on the DMU, the revenue from which would allow 4545 to be completely re-upholstered. Other contract work on GWRGreat Western Railway Inspection Saloon 80969 and Union of South Africa's support coach BSK 35486 (TOPS code 99405) also took precedence. 4545 finally re-entered the paint shop on 13 March 1995 for painting to be completed over the following four weeks.[9]

In spring 2001 4545 was withdrawn from the maroon set to be re-liveried in crimson and cream (which it had carried when first entering service in the 1950s). It had 'lost' its tables a few years earlier which had been used to equip a GresleySir Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London & North Eastern Railway 1923-1941 open, so 14 of them were replaced leaving one bay at each end empty for catering trolleys, buggies and fold-up wheelchairs. Other mechanical work and repairs were also carried out, and after three unbroken weeks of painting, 4545 emerged two weeks before the 1940's weekend.[10]

Over winter 2005-06 4545 was temporarily transferred onto a good set of bogies from stored 4399 while its own bogies received an overhaul including a new set of wheels due to wheel flats and wear. It also received a full repaint at Bewdley in April 2006.[11]

After a further seven years in service, 4545 next began an overhaul at Kidderminster in April 2013. The seats, which were 'worn down to the canvas', were re-upholstered by a combination of a contractor upholsterer and volunteers at a total cost of £6,000. The linoleum floors were also renewed. The coach had also suffered from an issue first noted in some of the LMSLondon Midland & Scottish Railway carriages with sliding windows dropping out due to wear. The solution which had been developed involved removing and re-shimming the top guide rail and this was duly carried out on 4545. The overhaul was expected to take around four months but a high level of running repairs on other vehicles meant it was eventually completed on Friday 20 September 2013, with 4545 once again entering service in crimson and cream livery.[12]

In early 2017 4545 was five coaches requiring vacuum cylinder repairs.[13] Later that year 4545 was withdrawn with wheel flats in early October and placed on accommodation bogies while its own set were sent to Bristol St. Philips Marsh Depot for turning; these were returned a few days later and refitted.[14]

4545 is used in Set C, the BRBritish Rail or British Railways Crimson & Cream running set, and is owned by SVR(H).

See also

Notes

  1. The TSO designation remained in use for Mark 3A and Mark 4 Open Standard carriages, although no 'ordinary' SO coaches were constructed after the Mark 2a in the mid 1960s.
  2. The other TSOs were 4509, 4545 and 4690 in 1982, and 4584 (no longer resident) and 4399 in 1983.

References

  1. Longworth (2013) pp.9,57.
  2. SVRSevern Valley Railway Stock Book 9th edition
  3. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 66
  4. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 102
  5. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 78
  6. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 81
  7. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 89
  8. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 104
  9. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 112, 114
  10. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 135, 137
  11. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 152, 163
  12. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 184, 186
  13. SVR-Online Forum, Kidderminster Carriage Works Update
  14. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 200

Links