Hello all, and welcome to another update from Quorn. This week we’ve been getting ready to wash the tank train by testing out our new pressure washer and some chemicals on the newly arrived 3621. The pipe run on 1919 was also finished off after the last two brackets were manufactured.
To start off with, I started to assemble the pressure washer which went together a treat. While I did this Ernie laid out the brackets in the positions they required welding into, which I then cracked on with. Nick and Harry started to strip off the extraneous rubber pipes from under 3621 and then fitted a temporary branch-pipe to enable us to check the cylinder that was installed last week is working satisfactorily.
With the vacuum system check complete (a formal test will be conducted before the tank is put into traffic), Charlie and Harry set to work on 3621, rinsing and washing the tank with some snowfoam and TFR.
The north end buffers on 3621 are non-functional, so Nick and Ernie started to remove them by heating up the nuts, though ran out of gas after the first two. After getting more gas, they continued getting these off on Sunday morning, after which the buffers were removed and the wagon shunted down.
A scaffold tower was set up to allow safe access to the top portion of the tank for cleaning by Oliver, Dan and myself, which continued throughout the day.
Tom and Mark set up the needle gun and removed the 5 layers of paint from the north headstock of the GUV, and a portion of the west side solebar. This was followed with a bit of primer, which also made its way to the fish van body.
I spent a portion of time measuring up the side tank supports on 3621, as a bit of an exercise in 3D modelling. After looking over both 1802 and 1919, the handbrakes on both wagons had the potential to cause injury due to the proximity of the end of the lever to the suspension links. One wagon require the pins to be removed and rotated to give adequate clearance, while the other had a piece of the lever cut off and dressed, all ably done by Ernie.
That wraps up this week’s happenings at Quorn. With 1802 and 1919 now waiting their turn in the paint queue, we’ll move using the time to clean the tank train next week to get them looking nice before the train gets moved away to Swithland. Join us next week to see how we get on!
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