Hello everyone, and welcome to another update from Quorn. Thankfully, the weather has been such that the Catfish have both been able to have been painted in top coat. While we did that the rest of the team made the dock a bit more habitable and tidier. We’ll start with the work done by the lads in the week on the LMS brake van.
Tom, Dan and Oliver joined Nick and finished off the last bits of painting and undertook a pad exam as the last jobs on the brake van. This should be heading back into traffic very soon.
We rocked up on Saturday morning to two very wet Catfish, both having a coating of dew on them. Everyone was out giving the wagons a wipe down with dry rag to aid the drying process, with some last bits of cleaning down also taking place. The vacuum hoses and Instanter couplings were removed to limit over spray clean up.
Nick, Ernie, Tom Oliver, Mark and Charlie made a start tidying up the dock, making 8 trips with the dumper to move all the wood we’ve removed from wagons to the bonfire pile.
I started talking Dan and Dave through the equipment we used for spray painting to start teaching them how to use it. We thinned down the paint to the right viscosity and got everything ready to start painting. With Dave and Dan on the gun, they started spraying from inside to out. We had some issue with the paint not flowing evenly, but they persevered and got DB983393 painted, barring the east side panels at the top of the hopper.
The other team sorted out the garden area, making a parking space for Danny, and sorting out some extra steps for both the GUV and the Tool Van.
The van train was taken away to Swithland for a few weeks while the Railway holds Bonfire Night in Quorn Yard. This allowed us a bit more room and more light around the wagons.
With Dan being unwell on Sunday, it left it to Dave and I to finish the wagons, starting with DB983393 which in the cold light of a new day was looking a bit patchy.
While Dave and I got cracking, Oliver and Tom cleaned out some of our paint kettles, getting them ready for future usage. Nick and Mark started the process of following Dave and I around touching in bits where the spray gun couldn’t quite get. Tom and Oliver join in with this. Tom hung up the 4 removed couplings ready to be sprayed.
Oliver went round the top of the hopper edge to paint the upper flat face.
After all that, we gently shunted the wagons back down, and stood back to admire two smart looking Catfish, in Satin Black.
We’ve got the sign writing left to do, gloss paint the white areas and to pick out the roller bearings on DB993560; all of which we’ll get to next weekend. We’re also popping by the NVR to meet up with their wagon group, so if you are there do say hello. Thanks for reading!
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