Welcome to our Quorn Wagon & Wagon update from the first week of March 2023.
1937 built LNER Plate wagon E212315 arrived at the GCR way back in 1997, and has been seen over the years operating in many mixed freight formations; however we thought it was about time we made a start on some well overdue restoration work.
The first task was to remove the old rotten floor planks, which revealed quite a lot of loose underframe surface rust, however the framework itself was found to be in very good overall condition.
Mark, Tom, Daniel and Charlie all helped Nick & Ross scraping and cleaning the underframe.
Once the underframe was scraped, cleaned and swept, a start was made applying bitumen paint to the inner faces of the framework that will be covered up once the new flooring is fitted.
A start was also made on scraping the side doors which revealed some original paintwork, numbering and lettering.
On Sunday I joined Ross & Nick to continue with the Plate underframe work.
The framework along the middle section of this wagon is 2″ lower than the side frames, therefore wooden battens are fitted on top of the frame longitudes to support the flooring planks that are laid across the wagon. These battens were all found to be rotten when the floor was removed, therefore replacements are required.
Ross and myself set about recovering some old floor planking, removing nails, measuring up and slicing to make the replacement battens.
Nick continued with the bitumen painting of the underframe inner surfaces.
The new battens were trimmed to give neat joints between each other, then marked and drilled for the mounting bolts. Our small pillar drill was temporarily mounted to the wagon underframe to help the process.
The replacement battens were all fitted in place with temporary bolts. They will be removed again next week for painting and final fitting once we have obtained some new coach bolts.
Join us again next week for some more Plate work, all the best, Dave
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