On the 18th August 2003 the Group's first working party set off from London to MOD Shoeburyness with the aim of recovering spare parts from the inside of some scrapped Class 308's.

Setting off just after 9.30am the team arrived at the MOD about 11.00 and checked in. (It being an MOD base we had expected the Military to be at the gate but it was some private company providing that service).

From there we were lead to the Serco stripping section from where we got our first look at the lines of units. Due to MOD rules, no pictures could be taken of this part of the journey or the carriages stored at that location.

What met the team was a very large pile of removed seat cushions; this was sorted through to give the Group the best set possible. The seats had been under cover, but the other parts had been stored outside. These included seat frames, luggage racks and the metal fittings from inside two Class 308's.

After the all the cushions had been loaded, a number of seat frames and bases were also loaded before setting off back to the Pump House.

The original plan was to drop off these spares and get back to the MOD one more time before they closed at 4pm. But due to the Police blocking off the A13, we had to take a different route back to London, which meant we took too long arriving back at the Pump House to allow a second visit. This will have to be done on another occasion.

All the seats after unloading from van

What we need (in brackets what we got this trip) 3 seats frames 16 (5) 2 seat frames 20 (9) Seat bases cushions 88 (24?) Seat Backs 88 (60) Seat head rest 88 (28?) Seat Stand 36 (32) joint strips side/ceiling 6 (8) Strips next to seats? ( 20?) inside door protectors 36 (30?) luggage racks (standard) 18 (0) luggage racks (small) 4 (0) Light strip covers 18 (8)

Thanks must go to the driver of the van who was roped in.

People attending were:

P Evans, N Evans and M Armstrong