Gresley Buffet No.641

Coach number 641 was built in 1937 by the London & North Eastern Railway Company at their York coach works to diagram 167, for fast London Liverpool Street to Cambridge trains with three other cars, while others worked on routes such as Newcastle to Carlisle, Leeds to Scarborough, Newcastle to Middlesbrough, Manchester to Cleethorpes and Liverpool Street to Clacton.

As far we can gather when built, 641 was fitted with electric cooking, which was powered by land lines when static in main stations and carriage sidings. when on the move power was supplied by two sets of batteries and three dynamos, giving a capacity of 20 kilowatts. The interior layout consisted of a kitchen at one end and an open saloon with two plus one seating for twenty four passengers and bar counter area in the centre of coach. The interior design of the saloon was typical thirties style, the walls and ceiling were covered in an early fabric backed vinyl called rexine and seating was provided by tubular steel chrome plated chairs.

The doors into the saloon had large ornate chromed door handles. The ceiling was off white or cream with a two large chrome fan covers ov er the bar area. The walls were dark blue from the bottom of the windows (or lights to use the correct term) to the floor and a pale sky blue colour up to the ceiling, which was also used on the counter front. Chrome plated coat hooks were provided for each seating bay. The bar was about twelve feet long, extending out from the kitchen wall to curve in to meet the side of the coach at the other end. The bar sloped gently out from the floor to the top, with two inch diameter chrome foot and hand rails. The top of the bar was finished off with a stills coffee fountain and tea maker by the kitchen, a glass display case in the middle and a cash register by the wall at the other end. On the wall behind the bar were some chrome trimmed bottle racks. The windows were topped by roller blinds. The windows opposite the bar had a chrome plated tubular bar across them to prevent people leaning against the glass. The vestibules and kitchen corridor were finished with teak varnished match board an d the plywood partitions were stained teak colour and varnished.

After the second world war, in 1946 number 641 was renumbered to 9129 to become E 9129 E with the change to British Railways in 1948.

After nationalization 641 lost its external teak livery, in common with all other Gresley coaches, becoming first carmine and cream and then maroon. Then during the fifties and sixties a number of these buffet cars were "refurbished" with plastic laminate interiors much in the style of later B.R. mark 1 standard stock (not too dissimilar to RMB E 1823 in the maroon set on the N.Y.M.R.). 641 was withdrawn from service in 1972, carrying the Inter City blue and grey livery. The last three buffet cars were withdrawn in 1977 and all three were preserved, one by the National Railway Museum, one by the North Norfolk Railway and one by the Severn Valley Railway.

Upon withdrawal 641 was bought by the Dart Valley Railway, who had it cosmetically restored at Swindon works. Unfortunately this work did not rectify the embryonic problems which were to lead to the vehicles continued deterioration. The condition of 641 was so bad that the D.V.R. management decided that it was beyond economic repair, although they didn't give that as a reason for the sale. To the rescue came L.N.E.R.C.A. members Dave Cullingworth and Paul Denston, who together purchased 641 and moved it to North Yorkshire.

Restoration began with the roof, bolting down the sprung boards, then canvassing and painting it. Then the fun began, every time one of the interior panels was removed another part of the teak frame was revealed and seen to be in need of attention. So the decision was taken to remove the B.R. interior and replace it with one as close to the original one as possible. There was still the question of what to do about the external panelling. Plywood had replaced all but a couple of the main lower body panels and on one side half the upper panels where the layout had been changed by the blanking off windows behind the bar and reducing the size of the kitchen window.

Behind the Formica we discovered that the vestibule and kitchen partitions were rotten and would have to be replaced. All four corners of the coach were rotten as were a couple of sections of cant rail. Many of the pillars down both sides had splits where bolts had corroded, door and corner pillars had been pushed out of place by scale which had formed behind large metal angles called "knee irons ". Another problem occurred at the bottom corners of windows in the joints between the pillars and the waist rail, let into these pillars are steel rods that run from the underneath of the bottom side rail to the top of the cant rail. These rods are called "tie bolts" and unless they are well protected condensation causes them to rust where they go through the waist rail. the rust expands splitting the pillar and making them near impossible to remove. A large area of the floor was in need of replacement as the ends had rotted about two to four inches, although the rest of lengths were still sound.

The location of a possible source of supply of the large teak panels was found in autumn of 1987 and was, much to the relief of all involved, to bear fruit early the following year,this gave us all a big lift. We were also grateful to the railway institute in York for giving us a set of original steel chairs, which had lined their sports hall since the coaches modernisation.

During early 1989 the restoration team ran out of bits of 641 to dismantle and demolish, so as this is what we are best at, we bought a coach to scrap just to keep us going. By the August coach week the same year we had seen most of that off and so were left with no alternative but to panel the east side of of 641 with a mixture of new and reclaimed panels. The south end panelling was completed early in 1990 and the west side panels fitted over Easter. The north end frame repairs were completed and panelled early on in August coach week.

The tasks in 1991 included the overhaul the gangways, the south one was refitted in January in front of Yorkshire Tv cameras. The Easter period that year saw both bogies stripped down, overhauled and painted.

The Interior had always seemed to be the biggest hurdle, until 1991 it was a sixty foot empty shell. The May coach week saw great strides being made with most of the ceiling and some of the walls panelled with plywood. The kitchen walls were erected over the August coach week and work on the bar was started in January 1992 and the saloon was decorated during July and early August.

Meanwhile on the exterior our collection of versatile volunteers completely replaced the steam heat piping and during the last coach week, the coach was lifted with the help of the N.Y.M.R. carriage & wagon staff and placed on stools. While 641 was off its bogies the remaining areas of underframe were cleaned and painted and the new steam pipe lagged. Once returned to its proper bogies the coach body was sanded and revarnished twice in readiness for lining and lettering, which Len Clarke, paint supremo of the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation group, over many hours. When Len was done with the tricky bits then the body was varnished several more times to protect the lettering.

The mechanical work was completed in 1993, which was followed by a series of proving runs. The first of these saw 641 and Pullman Car 79 make a return from Pickering to Levisham, but the second had the unusual pairing of the buffet with a 45 ton steam crane, which had suffered a hot axle box. The coach has seen use as the venue for the L.N.E.R.C.A. annual general meetings since 1994. An unusual event took place on new years eve 1993 when the Pickering volunteers prepared a Christmas dinner for 16 in the coach in the yard at Pickering, for themselves and some of their friends.

The kitchen was a major obstacle, not just the effort getting the cooker in through the window. This was not a popular area fitting out a modern kitchen is just not restoration! and although there were many jobs to do you could not really have more than 2 people working in there at once. Apart from the kitchen 1994 seemed to revolve around things chrome, with chairs, table edges, window rails, etc. all being made polished and then plated. One of the reasons that the interior took so long to complete was the shear cost of all that chrome.