A wet start to 2014

So a Happy New Year to one and all and boy has it been a wet one! Which kind of brings me onto my first picture which shows the Christmas weather at its 'finest' and one of the vintage vehicles out working on an emergency rail replacement just before Christmas Eve. We had so many vehicles out all over the place covering various problems that a few of the vintage fleet joined in. As you can see behind it is the ex Southend Fleetline, which must have felt very at home seen here at Southend Victoria Station.

Meanwhile one of the biggest problems in keeping the vehicles on the road and looking well is of course parts. In recent times the Doverite that spirals up and covers areas of the poles and grab rails on London buses has become ever harder to find so we set about looking to see what we could. After some conversations we tracked down one of the machines in Northampton that was used for curling it into shape, although it had no motors and no heat source but we brought it back to Purfleet where its mysteries were gradually worked out. Having fitted a motor, added a heat source it produces excellent results and our Routemasters and RTs are now gradually being refitted where necessary with a new supply. Here's a photo of the machine now fitted to a frame and up and running. Once we have played around a little bit more and perfected the procedure it will be our intention to make it generally available as I am sure other owners are facing a similar shortage.

OK I am going to leave it there as the first post of 2014.

Cheers
Steve