Author: rloades109

  • 26/09/21 – Stopping the tank

    26/09/21 – Stopping the tank

    This weekend has been a quiet one, Jake is away on a scout camp as a leader, Dave is on holiday, and both Richard and Matt are feeling a bit under the weather. This left Nick and I at Quorn to finish off the strip down and rebuild of 3711‘s brake system just to get it to be able to be shunted and to be able to use its handbrake.

    Last week we methodically went though each stuck joint and freed it off or dismantled it, cleaned it and re-assembled it with copious amount of grease to ensure continued movement. This continued this week, focusing on the South axle. Nick and I removed the bow girders and got the centre swing links moving again. Jamie very kindly whipped up 2 bolts to be able to re-hang the frame to brake swing links, which fitted a treat. By the end of the day, we’d aimed to have everything back together, but that wasn’t to be. One pin got stuck on re-assembly and we had to partially dismantle to be able to get it out. We did get everything together, but weren’t able to adjust.

    Nick got on site early on Sunday and adjusted the brakes up, which just left us with split pins to check and open out and a few tweaks to correct the operation of the handbrakes, using the gas axe and a large adjustable spanner. Since the wagon has been moved, we checked the roller bearings again which seemed to be satisfactory. We shall, of course, keep monitoring them. Nick then scraped and hoover some area of the tank and its frame, and I sorted out some rubbish with Danny to put in the skip. That completed the preliminary work on the tank, which now movable and stoppable, will await its turn in the queue unless requested sooner.

    We spent the rest of the day was sorting out and looking at the next project, the Bogie Bolster D, scoping out the work required. Next weekend is the railway’s Autumn Gala so the van train will be out in force, and some of us will be at Quorn making a start on the BoBol. Join us then and see what we get up to!

  • 12/09/21 – Short Report

    We’ve not a lot to report this weekend, there was very few of us around on Saturday and the War Weekend was in full swing. Now that the Palshocvan is finished, we took Sunday to carry out some sorting of the van train and the CCT. The latter is mooted to be going to Rothley to have some work carried out for a return to traffic for use later in the year, so we spent some time clearing all the items we’d stored in there out. Some of the vans have seen some issues with the loads that we’ve become aware of. The most obvious was the VEB, which has seen some of the racking collapse, which we’ve cleared and then thrown out. We’ve sorted some of the theatrical loads out and re-distrubted them, and put our kegs if one of the theatrical vans.

    We’ll be back at it again in full force next week where we’ll be starting work on the Bogie Bolster, join us then

  • 30/08/21 – Painted Palshocvan

    30/08/21 – Painted Palshocvan

    For our bank holiday, we’ve been concentrating our efforts on our Palshocvan, B855667. After last weekend’s work sanding and scraping the body, Dave popped in during the week to finish preparing the corrugated end panels.

    Saturday saw the team start off at Quorn to prep the Test Car and yard area for the Diesel Gala, and the upcoming War Weekend. We’ve moved everything out of the way we can and tidied the Test Car a little, including moving some gauges around inside to fill some gaps in the slip end. Lunch was consumed at Rothley after the van was de-dusted and wood primer was brush painted to all the wooden panels on the Palshoc.

    Sunday was more of the same, but involved a spraying a coat of undercoat all round the van, and then one coat of bauxite top coat, plus another gloss coat on each side as they suffer the effects of the weather the most.

    Matt was signwriting Monday and managed to get one side completed with the shock stripes aswell. Richard and Nick brush painted the solebars, and I set up the spray gear again to cover the running gear (apart from the wheels) with a coat of underframe black.

    I finished off some of the wiring I’d started on the Living Van, and repalced/supplemented the plastic cable ties utilised underneath for Stainless Steel alternatives. I also painted the handbrake ends and the swan necks white, this being vehicle having a vacuum through pipe only.

    It’s the Diesel Gala next weekend, and Dave and some other team members will be there to open up Test Car 2. Come and see us in the Test Car, where you can purchase one of our Stockbook, our booklet on Test Car 2 or a copy of Dave’s book, Rail Vehicle Testing. The rest of the team will be wrapping up the work on the Palshocvan, with the other side still to be signwritten and the roof to paint. Join us next week and see how we get on.

  • 15/08/21 – Railways at Work

    Before we get to the gala, Thursday evening saw us take a part in a photo charter run by TimeLine Events in Quorn Yard, featuring the team and Madge and Wilbur plus our collection of goods and parcels. (first 3 images are courtesy of Phil Thorne.)

    This weekend has been the Railway at Work gala, which has seen the debut of the Tank train featuring 6 tanks, plus a pick up goods and the van train. On the road vehicle side we’ve Madge, Wilbur plus some other visiting road vehicles incuding a coal lorry, a steam lorry, and a steam delivery van and an Austin delivery van. Dave and Richard also had Test Car 2 open to show people about the vehicle, what it used to do and the role of testing on the railways in general.

    Using the large team of re-enactors and our collection of goods and those of the stations, we’ve had goods and parcels flying around the railway. Jame and pat have been using the 15t crane to make various items fly; including Jamie’s tractor, Danny the dumper and Matt’s Aluminium conatiner. The conatiner has been on the back of every lorry, plus the big and little Scammell trailer.

    I think all that’s left to say is the team have had a brilliant weekend being part of the action, and we are really looking forward to make next years event even better. Thanks to everyone who made this happen, from the vehicle owners, the re-enactors, the ‘goods’ collectors and the plethora of GCR volunteers. Matt shall resume our normal service next week.

    Photo credit: Brandon Morley.

  • 01/08/21 – Quiet before the storm

    We’ve all been quite shocked by the news of the passing of Cliff Perry after a short illness. Cliff was a long term member of the GCR family and always graced the footplate with a beaming smile. A mentor and friend to many, he will be sadly missed.

    Moving on from the sad news, this weekend has been a quiet one. Dave is on holiday, Richard has visitors at home and unfortunately Matt has car trouble so can’t get here. Jake works Saturdays as well, so that left just Nick and I.

    The first job completed was the proving of the repairs to the through air pipe on the Ferry Tank. Thankfully, the only leak found was one on the cock that just required a bit a wiggle to seal.

    Our attention then turned to the Palshocvan. Some items were left in there from the previous owner, so we sorted through them and emptied four barrows into the skip. Another job completed was freeing off one of the screw couplings.

    After lunch I moved to progress the jumper cabling on the Living Van, wrangling with flexible conduit and the cable recovered from the roof. Nick started scraping the underframe of the Palshocvan, going through many layers of paint.

    Jake joined us again on Sunday, first assisting me with the jumper cabling, and then helping Nick with the scraping.

    The last job done as to dust off the Ferry tank before it leaves the cossetted confines of the shed to join the rest of the tank train at Swithland. A bit of a short update this week, normal service should be resumed next week, join us then!

  • 18/07/21 – Scarabs, Signwriting and Sorting

    Matt starts this weekend on Friday by starting chalking up the Ferry Tank. There’s a lot on this wagon with all its continental markings, so Matt and Dave have their work cut out! Some other news, Jamie and Pat welded the body of the Palshocvan to the donor chassis, so this is now one piece.

    The team were at Quorn on Saturday, tidying up the yard in preparation for the Living Van‘s return. Dave, Matt and Jack spent some time on Madge, getting her ready for a photo charter. There’s more work required in the future, but for now Madge is running better.

    Once I’d fixed our power cable, the rest of us tidied the yard and removed the remnants of the now redundant gate and fence up to the turntable. This opens up the area, making it easier for all persons to manoeuvre.

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    Sunday saw us back at Rothley, Dave and Matt signwriting one side of the Ferry Tank.

    I worked on the coach, sorting out some tower bolts for the doors that won’t be used often. I also sorted out some rigid conduit for the jumper cable from the Test Car. I’ve finalised the arrangement and painted into primer, so that will get top coated next week.

    Richard and Jake painted some of the underframe of the tank, in behind the anchor plates that hold the barrel down. Richard then worked on some replacement wagon label clip backers for the tank.

    Weather dependent, we’ll be back at Rothley next week to progress the Tank, the Palshocvan and the coach. I’ve some conduit to lay in and there’s the East side of the tank to signwrite. Join us then and see how we get on.

  • 04/07/21 – BCKomplete

    04/07/21 – BCKomplete

    Last week, we left you with a coach that was cosmetically and bodily repaired and repainted, leaving just the varnishing to go. Before I get onto the varnishing though, I need to mention some work Matt and Dave did for the wagon group at Chasewater. Their group has been working on a VEA van, much similar to our own 230097 (B784409), and asked Matt and Dave if they’d signwrite the van into an early Railfreight Livery. Dave did 2 days (Wed/Thurs) and Matt just Thursday. The van really looks excellent, and Matt and Dave enjoyed themselves. Matt also enjoying seeing an original Master Cutler headboard!

    Onto the weekend and working on both the Living Van and the Ferry Tank. The team began on Saturday by wiping down the coach. Richard and Jake then moved onto applying undercoat to the tank barrel and bodywork. Unfortuantely a bit of a patchwork as we didn’t seem to have enough grey undercoat to finish the tank. The gloss black will cover all the same though.

    While Richard and Jake attended to the tank, Matt and I covered the coach in a coat of varnish. Its the first time that either of us had varnished anything, so we took our time to ensure we got a good finish. Following Jamie’s advice we went down each side; first person focusing on the panels themselves and the other on the intricate and tricky details on the coach like the bump stops and window frames. Matt and I flipped a coin for it, and I drew the short straw of having the panels.

    Taking our time, we got the west side completed and up to the guard’s door on the east side where we had to stop. This task was continued by Dave and I today. Between us we did the final section of bodyside and both ends of the coach, complete the repaint. There’s a few items still to sort out on the coach, but these can be done anywhere.

    Richard and Nick concentrated on the tank wagon again, this time getting black gloss around the tank filler and other accoutrements on top of the barrel. Once we’d done with the coach, Dave joined the work on the tank.

    I had other duties, in my capacity as our resident sewing expert (not a huge accolade for us really, just means I have and can drive a sewing machine!) I was roped in to help Matt make something for work. Answers on a postcard for what said item is…

    Matt was only around until dinner due to a prior engagement, but came to complete his homework for work. He also popped in at Quorn and popped a lock on the new gate by the signal box, which was pre-agreed with the Ops Manager.

    That about concludes the work this week. All that left on the coach is to clean the windows and give the roof a wash, and the tank to continue painting. Both of these and probably much more will be tackled next week, join us then!

  • 20/06/21 – The Final Furlong

    Yet again the end of another week and another update from us. This week starts with some Friday work from Dave. The battery box doors got a coat of gloss. The gas boxes and their lids and some underframe parts got a coat of undercoat. Dave removed the guard’s desk to paint the back of it into primer for an eventual coat of black, similar to the boards in the bedroom and mess area.

    Dave wasn’t with us on Saturday, but the rest of the team were in attendance, sorting out small details on the coach pushing us ever closer to the finish line. Nick, Richard and Matt went round the coach and painted a first coat in the blue round the door jambs and shuts.

    Richard applied black gloss to the areas undercoated by Dave on Friday.

    I concentrated on the Shore Supply inlet and the eventual Jumper cable to enable us to feed the coach power from the Test Car’s Generator. These got a clean down and a coat of primer on Saturday.

    I also removed the north end buckeye as it was deemed to be in excellent condition and replaced it with one in passable condition. The North End is rarely going to be coupled to anything and would just hang there in all weathers, so doing this has enabled to good buckeye to go into stock for the service stock.

    Sunday was much of the same, Matt going round and applying grey to the door shuts, signwriting the OLE warning flashes and generally tidying up paint wise. Matt alos applied a first class totem and no smoking transfer to the bedroom window as these were missing.

    I continued with the jumper plugs and shore supply inlet, applying a coat of undercoat and then orange top coat.

    Nick sorted out a small issue with one of the door chains, then joined Jake and Dave with scraping the bogies.

    Once scraped and hoovered, the bogies got a coat of black paint. Dave also picked out the details on the gas box door plate.

    Next step is to apply a coat of varnish to the body work and finish the bogies on the east side. Hopefully both of these can be done next weekend. Join us then, and see if we manage it.

  • 06/06/21 – Déjà Blue

    06/06/21 – Déjà Blue

    As Matt mentioned in last week’s update, I’ve had the past week off work and have spent it working at Rothley on the Living Van (we can’t really call it the Yellow Coach anymore!) Tuesday was spent painting the two sliding gangway doors into their first coat of gloss. Wednesday was spent sanding the undercoat on the bodysides with 400 grit paper, which left Thursday to finish off the sanding by hand in areas that couldn’t be done with the air sander and then to clean the coach down, ready for glossing at the weekend.

    On to Saturday with almost the whole gang in attendance, the main focus was, naturally, glossing the coach, the first of many layers of paint were applied. The photos will let the cat out of the bag, so I might as well reveal that the coach is going to be Blue and Grey, in its BCK guise; SC21202. The first, and biggest bit of painting done was the blue. Gutters and Cant Rail, Ends and lower Bodyside. Dave started the second coat of blue on the internal portion of the corridor connection, with Richard on the body ends themselves. This left Matt, Nick and I to start the bodysides.

    With that left to dry, the gang tripped to Quorn to trial load a British Railways Universal Trolley Equipment (BRUTE) into Nick’s new road vehicle to see if such an item would fit in readiness to pick one up.

    It would also be remiss of me not to note that being the railways first special event since the COVID pandemic, the revitalised Mixed Freight has been in use, feature a majority of the repainted tank wagons.

    The gloss used was re-coatable in 16-24 hours, so Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday. Once finished, Dave, Jake, Nick and Richard moved to painting both the headstocks in gloss black.

    Matt and I made some boards to put inside the bedroom and mess area windows on the compartment side instead of painting the windows out as was done previously.

    I’ll leave the update there. We now have a coach that has 2 coats of Rail Blue, awaiting the grey, the lining and signwriting, and then the underframe. Matt has the week off work, so will be progressing the coach. I’m sure he’ll tell you in next week’s update. Join us next week and see what Matt and the rest of us get up to.

  • 23/05/21 – Gloss on high

    23/05/21 – Gloss on high

    We’re back for another weekend update, some mid-week work to mention before we get stuck into the main report. 6463 was tripped to Loughborough some weeks ago to have the Shock Palvan body mounted onto it. On Tuesday Nick was called as the van body was dangling over the four-foot in front of the loco shed, ready to be positioned. Having been lifted on and positioned, it now awaits welding to the chassis. Once done it will be tripped to Quorn and will wait for our return. Thanks to Alex Burnside for the pictures.

    Onto the weekend, our first focus was the roof of the Mess coach. If you remember, we left last weekend with the roof having been painted into undercoat. That undercoat has had all week to go off, so its now the turn of the roof top coat. Nick, Jake and I went up first thing to paint all of the roof furniture, after which we had tea. Dave and Richard were with us, and between them they started to come up with a solution for the cat walk on top of the Ferry Tank.

    After tea Nick, Jake and I started the main roof paint, which aside from the furniture as to be done in one go, otherwise you get a dry edge. Dave and Richard persevered with the grills. Once they were complete some scraping was started, but not too much as roof paint was still rather wet!

    Sunday rolls around, with the first job was removing the ‘Dalek’ from the top of the tank wagon. When converted to internal use, an elbow and flange was attached to the top of the tank, with a large pipe to drop the inlet/outlet down to the solebar. Nick didn’t like the elbow and flange and decided it must be removed. Dave undid the four nuts from the tank top, and then copious amounts of force was used to remove the flange. Upon closer inspection (with me in the tank), the aim wasn’t achieveable. The elbow was attached to the main tank feed pipe that runs from the top of the tank to 3 or so inches from the bottom. We neither had the room to the roof of the shed, nor a safe way of lifting the pipe up given the mass of it. The pipe was knocked back down and re-affixed. Matt plans to remove the elbow tomorrow another way.

    Other tasks done today was the annual exam on the Warflat which Matt and Nick did, with me oiling the brake gear. Matt and Dave went to Loughborough to measuring across the roof width on the Shock Palvan and to take a picture of the CCT behind the loco shed, though more on this in the future. Once back Dave carried on filling the coach, ready for sanding next weekend.

    That wraps up this weekend’s activities, next weekend is a bank holiday so should see a lot of activity on the coach with the next sand and 2nd undercoat being applied. As always, join us then and see how e get on.