30/01/22 – Galas, Gales and Green cladding

Good evening and welcome to another update from Quorn. This weekend has been the railway’s Winter Gala, and a busy one it was too! Both the van train and the minerals have been out to play, along with several passenger trains. We’ve been holding off on undertaking work on the van train whilst they’ve been wanted at photo charters and galas throughout January, so we’ve been spending some time as you’ve seen wokring on other things.

This weekend has seen most of the team finish building ‘the garage’, our temporary building. Last weekend we had most of the roof on and all of the north end and side cladding, so we picked up where we left off, by finishing the roof. The wind on Saturday didn’t help with this!

The roof was finished, then Dave concentrated on getting the cladding for the eaves rivetted to the structure. Firstly on the North end, and then the South. Matt, meanwhile started Madge up, and we tried her through the shed door to see if she fits.

We also shifted our wooden shed everso slighty, to turn it 90 degrees and to line it up with the back of the steel shed. After this we generally pottered around the shed until dark.

With fewer of us on Sunday, we concentrated on sorting out the last few bits fo cladding, including cutting some steel to fill in where a few panels have been lost. Thomas and I rivetting the bottm of the west side panels, and then went round and rivetted where holes where. Nick cut the replacement panelsfor the south end in the eaves and above the personell door. Nick and Thomas rovetted the south end panelling to the structure.

Eddie was also onsite, and carried on the prep work on the Bogie Bolster.

Next weekend, we’ll be making a start on the bodywork repairs on the van train now that they are free of commitments until March. We’ll either be manufacturing doors, or starting to cut some bodyside sheets. Join us then and see where we get too!