Just like Pulling Teeth
By Max Fish
In the far corner of the carriage shed is a clerestory (pronounced 'clear story') roofed carriage which has not moved for many years.
For most of these years it has been used to store various bits and pieces that may possibly be of use at some future time, or just needed to be got out of the way.
Some pragmatists suggested that the junk was already collected in a junk container and the car should be got rid of permanently.
Fortunately the car has stayed under cover and has not added deterioration to neglect.
The car just happens to be the oldest carriage in our fleet. It started life in 1901 as an AL class sleeping car number 1040 and ranged NSW from Albury, Cowra, Broken Hill and South Grafton.
In late 1935 it was converted to a dental clinic car.
Specialist dental work was not available in country areas. Things like fitting dentures and plates or more than just the simplest of extractions or fillings could not be done.
Moving around the State, these cars - there were two - enabled some of these things to be done in regional centres.
More complex work meant a trip to the Sydney Dental Hospital. It was no accident that this is placed next to Central Station. I know because as a young teenager it meant quite a few 32 class hauled end platform car journeys from Austinmer.
The petrol generator set powering the dental drills caught fire during 1967 and did considerable damage to one end of the car. That damage is still there unrepaired to this day. The fire ended DCC 1040's working life and some years later it was purchased by our society.
Enter stage left unrepentant Goon Show fanatics and rampant carriage freaks Bob Hall, Lindsay Richmond and Graeme Baseden carrying their victim (oh, do treat him carefully, Moriarty!) Tony Patis securely bound by innumerable Sleeping Car transfers to a large barrel of tuscan and russet.
Fresh from (almost) bringing glory to our dogbox guards van HCX 632, they have seized DCC 1040 when no-one was looking.
After days of junk removal (safely stored in a more appropriate places), the team managed to walk from one end of the car to another. This was no mean feat. They could have come across long vanished society members or unremembered politicians!
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Now the unspeakable is happening. Woodwork is appearing where only space existed.
Some of the timber is former junk but some has been purchased by the team members from their own funds. Society money has to go on vehicles we needed to keep running and this car is years away from that.
Ceiling timbers have been replaced in places. However much of this will not be seen as it was covered by decorative pressed metal panels.
Fine, but a number of these panels have ugly holes cut in them for the car's conversion to dental clinic work. Very difficult to patch. No worries, Bob Hall has made a mould from a complete sheet and can run off fibre glass copies.
However, in the spirit of true railway standardisation, the panels come in different lengths. Each will require its own mould.
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Note that the clerestory section has the original window openings (lights). These had not been covered over, as happened with many of these cars.
We have the etched glass and the fittings for them to be opened and closed. The original timber is in good condition in many places. Look carefully in the pictures.
The railways specified and got top quality materials in those days.
Our car has another claim to fame. It was a Pullman sleeping car using the Pullman patent sleeping berths. Not all of these were lost in the conversion to a dental clinic car.
Sleeping berths lay along the length of the car and not across the car, as in the Mann design sleeper (see our two stainless steel NAM twinette cars or the TAM and BAM sleepers).
- Continued next column
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The top bunk hinges down on chains from above the main side windows. A spring counter balance system takes some of the weight of the heavy berth frame.
That oval space on the dividing panel between berths takes a mirror. One like it and another square mirror with mouldings also feature in the Governor General's car built in the same year.
With care, we could get the same level of finish on our car's timber work. The bottom bunk folded out using the two seats below the top bunk. An area seated 4 but slept 2, so someone missed out.
Restoring the car is going to be a long job.
Fortunately, the fire did not destroy the structural integrity of the car. The decorative mouldings and stained panels though are now just holes and charcoal. |
The dental conversion sliced doorways through partitions and closed up existing doorways. Light fittings were ripped out and more utilitarian ones installed.
Even these have now gone as they were probably used in the replacement dental cars along with the dental equipment and fittings.
There is now one less superfluous doorway. Instead of the partition separating the smoking area from the main sitting and sleeping areas using a centre door, the smoking area became the waiting room and the area beyond became the dental surgery.
The connecting door was now against the side wall of the carriage.
Graeme and Lindsay set about changing that. When eventually the panel was trimmed to size (square? what's square?), Lindsay chiselled a slot in the floor which would take a biscuit.
A biscuit is a small piece of wood that fits in the slot in the floor and a slot in the base of the partition. It fixes the partition to the floor.
Democracy reigns and Graeme cut the other biscuit slot. After much work and thought, the partition was in.
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