Author: rloades109

Welcome to another update from Quorn Wagon and Wagon. This weekend has been Goods Galore, with our goods vehicles rattling up and down the line. This doesn’t stop us however, and we have had a very productive weekend. Not one, but two wagons were painted up into gloss! The weekend also marks the return the service of the LMS box van, which made its debut in the parcels rake.

Firstly Nick, Jake, Dave, Matt and Jack set about the Shochood B and the Medfit with Scrapers and wire brushes. Whilst this took place, I was inside the GUV preparing the paint and spray gun for the spraying session. Once I’d prepared everything, I went to assist RVP with connecting the LNER Gresley to the mains for display for the weekend.

Once scraped, Dave and I went round and painted any areas of bare metal and the tops of the wagons in red oxide primer.

It was then time for tea! Jake has now been with us for a whole year, so to celebrate he brought in a cake to share with us!

After tea was drunk and cake consumed, I began spraying the wagons in undercoat and then handed over to Jake for him to complete the rest of the Shochood and the all the Medfit.

While Jake was spraying, Dave and I started to make something I dreamt up. With the 2 compressors we now have (the Hydrovane and the one in TC2), I believe that we have sufficient capacity to run 2 spray guns at the same time. As such Jake could be painting one side, whilst I spray paint the other. For this I thought about making a manifold that can be hung from/mounted to the wagon so that we easily run a hose down either side of a vehicle. Dave and I ferreted around in the various boxes of fittings left in TC2 and managed to put something together where we can use any of the air hoses we have on site. This was put together and leak tested successfully.

To finish off the day, we removed 2 doors and a spare vacuum cylinder from storage  and placed our spare brake van stove back into store in the van train. The 2 doors are destined for the Yellow Coach to be reinstated in the luggage area.

On to Sunday, with glossing being the main order of the day. Jake had to spend the day revising for his upcoming GCSEs, so I took the lead with the spray gun and got the Shochood and Medfit painted into gloss. A personal best was set for 2 wagons painted before tea at 11.00! Prior to spraying the Medfit, Mat and Nick fitted its Bodyside Chalk boards. Caption competition time?

With the wagons hardening off in the lovely warm sunshine, the team set upon the vacuum cylinder retrieved from the van train.

Once opened up, the cylinder was found to have surface rust on the bore, and the piston stuck in its halfway position. The cylinder has been stored on its dome for around 20 years, so this is a lesson in the correct way to store a vacuum cylinder (vacuum cylinders should be stored with the piston rod removed, the with bottom of the cylinder lowermost). As the cylinder was stored incorrected, the seal had been compressed into the bore and the piston, making it very difficult to remove the piston. Like the last cylinder, an application of penetrating fluid and a sledgehammer had the piston out. Matt began cleaning the piston and cylinder using a wire brush on the grinder.

I cleaned up the gland seal retaining bush and refixed it to the base of the cylinder.

Whilst cleaning the components of the cylinder, we were asked to assist with the turntable demonstration, where the turntable had got stuck. Matt lowered himself into the pit with our pinch bar to un-stick the turntable.

Out of the turntable pit, Matt, assisted by Jack, started to paint some of the details on the wagons, starting with the sheet hoops of the Shochood. Jack stayed on the floor and painted the chalkboards on both wagons.

With the paint again left to dry, we then went to Rothley to assist in removing 3 coaches from the train in preparation for their annual exams this coming week. In doing this, Matt became the last person to use the current Rothley ground frame before it gets removed this week, in the S&T work week.

Whilst at Rothley, we also looked upon progress on the Yellow Coach, with 2 new doors fitted at the south end of the vehicle, and 4 heater patches welded in, the coach is well on its way to recovery.

There is still a fair amount left to do on the coach, including the ends and a “new” set of double doors in the luggage area. Back to Quorn, and the paint had gone sufficiently hard for Matt to apply the shock stripes to the Shochood B.

The vehicles are nearly ready for traffic now, with the only thing left to do being to paint the underframes and apply the lettering.  Thank for reading this weeks chock full update! Join us again next week where we will hopefully have the Shochood B and the Medfit completed!

Good morning everyone and welcome to another update from Quorn. This weekend, we have finalised work on the LMS van and continued the overhaul of another 18″ wagon cylinder. We have also begun to strip out the interior of the Yellow Coach so that bodywork repairs can begin.

Nick, Jake and Olly continued to refurb an 18″cylinder, scraping, wire brushing and abrading most surfaces of the components. The cylinder is a Westinghouse affair and has some detail differences between it and a ‘BR’ one, most notably the piston doesn’t have a ball valve in it. In our spares ‘department’ we only have E- Type release valves, which fit the standard ‘BR’ cylinders. The one for this cylinder has a ball valve as part of the release valve, which we don’t have one of currently. Perhaps there will be one in one of our box vans.

Whilst Nick and the lads continued their work on the cylinder, Matt and I got stuck into the operating shaft of the LMS van. The arm extension that Matt had designed, and ably manufactured by Mick Carr at Loughborough (thanks Mick!), is designed as a bolt on extension to the stub left on the cross shaft. The ‘old’ arm was a rather soft steel, so drilled quite easily when one found a sharp drill bit. Sadly, not many of our drill bits are sharp so Matt racked up quite the kill count for drill bits this weekend.  He also left 2 drills smoking. I can’t say much though, as I broke a tapered reamer. Ouch! After a lot of struggling, the arm was fitted and tested. There was a slight rotation of the arm relative to the shaft, but we plan on having the arm welded where possible to increase rigidity.

 

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On to Sunday, and a change of scenery. A while ago, our mess vehicle, the Yellow Coach was shipped off to Rothley for some very much needed bodywork attention. Jamie and Pat have now surveyed the vehicle (and affectionately named it Booths) and told us where we need to strip to reduce the fire risk when it comes to cutting out and welding. Matt and I stripped out all the body-side gas heaters, which we don’t plan on using again, and Nick and Olly started to remove the panelling around the window in the first class toilet, where whoever had fitted the plastic window had used steel machine screws in the aluminum window frame. Brass machine screws should have been used. The body-side heaters put up very little resistance and made their way to the scrap pile. Matt then concentrated on one of the mess area windows, and I set upon the kitchen. The fridge was disconnected and removed, and the oven received a similar treatment. The wall cupboard was cleared out and removed, and then I set upon the body-side wall paneling. The kitchen has an electric heater under the window. I disconnected and removed this and discovered historic fire damage on the wall behind it. When it comes to reassembly, we now have to opportunity to give the kitchen a deep clean.

 

We left Rothley with items we had wanted to keep from the yellow coach and returned to Quorn to tidy them away. Matt also took some time to admire his work on a sign he is working on for Renaissance Rail Cars.

Thanks for reading, and join us again next week for some more adventures of the wagon variety.

Thanks for joining us for another QWW update. This week we have been working on progressing the LMS van, M500954. Those of you who follow our Facebook page will already know that on Monday, Matt had popped in after this early shift at work to signwriting the still drying van. The van is now signwritten, but will receive its XP rating once the vacuum cylinder is refitted as intended.

On to Saturday and Nick and Matt began by finishing scraping and wire brushing both ends of the van. The north end required a capping wood trimming, then the remainder of the paint removing.

Whilst removing the paint, we found some more concrete evidence as to the van’s new number. As we have mentioned previously we settled on 500954 as it was the most likely number from the disposal list of 1000 vans. The van was recorded as withdrawn at Barassie works, and its final location recorded as Inverkeithing. This is the only van of those withdrawn at Barassie that wasn’t broken up there, and it ended up 1 mile from Inverkeithing as an internal user at MOD Rosyth.

Getting to the point, we uncovered the roof covering date: “7090; 23.10.54”. The depot code for Barassie is 7090 in the 4 number code system. This confirms the van was in Scotland towards the end of its revenue earning service. This we know, as the van was withdrawn at the same works in period 8 in 1967. It was then recorded at Inverkeithing in period 13, 1967.

Once the ends of the van had the paint removed and wire-brushed, I set about applying primer, then undercoat and then top coat to the ends. Whilst I was doing the north end, Matt and Nick fixed the buffer identified as loose last week, which involved an item we have stored in the corner of our tool van, but never once used; a buffer clamp. Usually, we would pin the wagon down and then compress the buffer using the forklift.

On to Sunday, and with it I found myself out of action performing repairs to my car for a forthcoming MOT. I was on site however should any assistance be required. Matt and Nick set about scraping the tin roof of the LMS van clear of its flaking paint, and applying a coat of bitumenous paint.

Matt also reapplied the roof covering date to the north end of the van were it was found. He also picked out the lamp brackets in white, as this is intended to be a fitted vehicle. Finished with the roof, Matt and Nick set about using up what was left in the bitumen tin by painting the south end headstock.

I’m now signing off for 2 weeks, as I am again journeying to Greece. Join Matt again next week for more tales of the LMS van story!

Thanks for joining for another update! Work this week has continued on the LMS box van. Last week, it was left with 5/6 side sheets replaced, so this week we completed the re-cladding of the van. When I’d arrived, (admittedly later than usual) Matt and Nick had undone most of the bolts holding the remaining cladding to the vehicle. Once the internal cladding had been removed, the planks were removed.

 

The door on this side of the van has always been stiff to open, so with the side out, Matt began to investigate why.  He began by removing a bit of angle iron that was rubbing on the door, a sort of steel draught excluder.  This helped, but didn’t completely solve the issue. With Matt out of the way, Jake cleaned and painted the backs of the steel uprights, in preparation for putting the boarding back in.

 

Once started the cladding came together extremely quickly; a blink and you’ll miss it moment!

As with the other corners, this was then fixed into place. Matt, meanwhile, began repairing a hole in the van’s end pressing. As mentioned before, we don’t have the ability to weld in the south yard, so any metal repair has to be bolted or riveted. Matt spent his time in the RAF as an Airframe technician, carrying out riveted repairs to Nimrod airframes among other things. Using the skills honed in the RAF, Matt set about fabricated a patch to go over the lack of metal at the bottom of the end pressing.

 

As Matt was at the Bluebell Railway on Sunday, Nick and I finished up riveting the plate into position. Also on Sunday, Jake continued his practise at using the spray gun, and both he and I got both van sides into wood primer. Whilst we tackled the Dock side, Nick continued fettling the reluctant sliding door on the west side of the van, and sealing the side of the van.

 

The painting and the door fettling completed, we turned our attention to the Shochood B and Medfit’s vacuum system. At some point in the past, unknown to us, these vehicles had had their vacuum systems isolated, so were effectively running through piped. We completed the system, and began to diagnose. Nick gathered together some branch pipes and set about reconnected the cylinders. Doing this first step allows us to diagnose the vacuum system, and see where we need to next turn out attention to. That done, I freed the vacuum test rig from the corner of the tool van, and assemble its hoses to begin testing. results from the testing are as follows: the Shochood B requires a new vacuum hose at the south end, and the Medfit requires 2 new hoses and a cylinder overhaul. Though we are thinking about a quieter test rig! (ours is powered by a Lister-Petter diesel engine, so an electric motor probably won’t go amiss!)

Thanks for reading, and who knows what we’ll be doing next week!

Good morning everyone, and welcome to another update from Quorn Wagon and Wagon.  This weekend, we have continued to work on the LMS box van.  At the end of last week, we had stripped the side from the van and removed the door frame for patterns.

On Saturday morning we took delivery of the new side planks for the van from Harlows timber merchants. These planks have been pressure treated, so should stand up to the beating the weather throws at the body sides. We also took delivery of a new sliding door frame, ably carried by Matt and Nick.

So the day begins, we began by building up the door frame with all the bits of steel framework to enable the door to be refitted to the van. Taking advantage of the good weather, Matt and Nick set up shop on the dock. Before mounting anything to the frame, areas where things were to be mounted had a generous coating of wood primer. A tea was consumed to allow the paint to dry a little bit, and then the top and bottom angle irons were fitted.

Then the side frame was added, which governed the placing of the rollers at the top of the door, and the corner reinforcing pieces at the bottom.

What was I doing whilst Matt and Nick were readying the door? I was repairing some other doors, as fitted to another Transit van. I replaced locks on the load space doors, and then sat in the warmth of TC2 and repaired the rear door wiring loom. Once I’d fixed the central locking, I assisted Matt and Nick with the rehanging of the sliding door. We’d managed to slide the door on, but some adjustment was required to allow the door its full range of movement. Last thing to fit to the door was the latch.

Just before hometime on Saturday,  Matt painted the door frame and rebates in wood primer and part of the side ‘fell’ in.

On to Sunday. Before I had got there, Matt and Nick (in between perusing the Swapmeet) had fitted the south side planks. Both end required a filling strip, at the top of the cladding, which I set myself up in the GUV to make. These were slid in, and then a team of Dave, Jake, Matt and Nick set about bolting the side planks and internal cladding to the van side. Whilst they did that, I cut out the plywood back piece for the sliding door. The vertical front planks screw to this backing wood, so this task readies us for next week.  Nick, using the angle grinder, cut off the end of the bolts that were considered too long, whilst I was inside screwing the backing boards to the door frame. Now the sides are in its a bit dark in there! Jake finished the door off by painting the front face of the plywood in wood primer.

Next week, the door planks will be added and the side planks painted with wood primer (weather dependent). Then onto the other side!

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to another weekend update from the team in Quorn, featuring some unseasonably warm weather! This weekend we have started to come back to normality, back in our pen in the south yard at Quorn. During the week Test Car 2 and the CCT were stabled back in the Up Reception South (thanks to the Ops team), with the Yellow Coach being taken to Rothley for its much-needed bodywork repairs, courtesy of Jamie and Pat at Rothley (Thanks in advance guys!). More on that will be covered in later updates.

This weekend has seen us get ready for the coming year, with stuff being tidied and shifted around (yet again!). Having the CCT delivered has meant that we could empty the ex-Windcutter Group stores van, M500954, as well as move some items from the GUV.  The LMS van begins its journey through a reclad and repaint for it to join the van train. The intention is to refit the vacuum to this vehicle, which we are beginning to sort out components for.

As the CCT is no longer being retained for as the fire van, we carefully removed the IBC cubes and relocated the firefighting equipment to one end of the van. This allowed us to transfer all items from the LMS box van into the CCT. Once all items had been removed, Jake started taking down the internal racking, which has been retained for redeployment; after all, we can’t let things go to waste!

I assisted Jake with this, once I had replaced the front bumper of my car, which had sustained some damage from a Muntjac deer one Saturday evening last winter.

Also on Saturday, as part of some fireman training, the box van train had several trips, which saw the use of the Southern brake van, which was also removed from the South Yard during the week.

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Sunday morning rolls around, and with it bring us a special guest! We were pleased to reunite Dave Bower with Test Car 2. Dave used to work TC2, among other vehicles, during his time working for British Rail Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering from 1983 to 1994, and then for Serco until 2008. In this time Dave was involved with over 700 tests on new build vehicles as part of their acceptance to the network or investigating modifications to existing vehicles. Dave has also written a fantastic book, Rail Vehicle Testing (link on our Links page), which details the tests of which he was a part of,  why vehicles were tested, and information about the Test Cars among other subjects. Dave was able to show us how the coach worked, and some finer details of its conversion (including any questions we had) and told us a few stories of his time working the coach. Thanks for coming along Dave, and we hope you had a good day; as we certainly did!

Other tasks undertaken today included reuniting parts of the tank with the tank, and finding and cleaning a fridge to use in TC2 whilst the Yellow Coach is away.

Next weekend, we plan on starting to strip down the dock side of the LMS van in readiness for its reclad; and we shall continue to tinker with Test Car 2. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to this weekend’s update from Quorn Wagon and Wagon’s Rothley outpost. We have again been working on Test Car 2, in preparation for its move to Quorn as our temporary base.

Work this week has concentrated around the vehicle’s vacuum system. Last week, we were able to prove that the vacuum pipe was intact as a throughpipe. We started off by digging out some spare Direct Admission (D.A) Valves and sections of specially shaped pipework out of the van train from storage. This pipework fits into the tee joint from the main vacuum train pipe and drops them down to the D.A valve bracket next to the Vacuum Cylinder.

 

Firstly, We removed the bungs from the tee pieces in the train pipe and connected the first section of downpipe to the Crane coupler.

 

 

One end had a frame fitted to carry a DOPLAR speed measuring system whilst it was based at the Old Dalby Test Track. Matt set about removing that frame whilst Nick and I trial fitted the down pipes to see where the bracket would sit. This would also show us modifications we’d have to make to the pipework to be able to fit with appropriate clearance for all components in the area.

 

 

Both ends required no modification to the down pipe, but both had to have the mid section and final sections altered to allow for best positioning on the coach.

 

 

The electric pipe threader made light work or altering the pipes and by the end of Saturday we had managed to effect a brake application on the North end of the coach.

 

 

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We found that whilst the brake applied satisfactorily (first time since 1991) they would leak off after 5 minutes. we cleaned and exercise the release valve on the cylinder. This resulted in the cylinder holding for 3 hours, after which we lost interest. Our attention then move to the south end brake cylinder.

The south end of the vehicle is fitted with reduced diameter cylinders on both the vacuum and the air braking system.  This means that the vehicle has a reduced brake force reducing the risk of the wheelsets locking up as this end was fitted with tacho counters for distance measuring during tests. We found that the brake cylinder again applied well, but released after only 1 minute. Initially, we suspected the release valve, so changed that for a spare. this did not rectify the issue, so we then replace the DA valve. This hasn’t rectified the issue, so no the cylinder is suspected. This will be replaced in due course. Matt remains confident in the air brakes of the coach, after its final movement to the loading pad on the Test Track.

Work didn’t just take place on the brakes. Matt has trimmed the buckeye chain guide to allow the Brake Pipe cock on the air system to latch shut. I reinforced the door frame around the lock I fitted last week. I also noticed whilst underneath the vehicle that the return spring for the south brake rigging had come adrift and was not in place. A spare was found and Matt wedged himself into the bogie and fitted it. The train lighting jumper blanking cover was found in the guards area, so Matt refitted it to the North end from whence it came.

 

 

Thanks for reading this update, join us next week, when the saga of the vacuum cylinder continues!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another weekly update from Quorn Wagon and Wagon.

This weekend has seen the railway host the annual Winter Steam Gala, with the van train running and the mixed freight making a welcome reappearance. We were also staffing the demonstration Travelling Post Office train, performing ground duties in the mornings and staffing the train for the afternoon run.

Most importantly though, we fitted the sheet to the Shochood B, which makes us the proud owners of the only Shochood B in preservation! Matt collected the sheet on Friday. We have fitted it temporarily, as the best place to store a sheet is in place on the wagon. The sheet will be removed before painting. As the fitment is temporary, we’ve used cable ties to attach the sheet to the wagon. We discovered when putting the sheet in position, that one of the bars was able to jump off its prop, leaving a sharp pole. Nick and I went around inside the wagon and used some steel strapping to prevent the poles lifting off the poles.

Matt has put some effort in and put himself together a GPO uniform to play the part of a postman from the 1960s. He also borrowed a post bike from the station to complete his image. On the TPO, Matt and I did some work to free of the letter flaps, as fitted to Postal Sorting carriages.

Thanks for reading this small update, and join us next week for another!