Category: Updates

Hello everyone! I’ll start off with a reminder about next weekend’s Railways at Work Gala, full details are on the GCR WebPage here. We’re all looking forward to it, and you’ll see some of us dressed up taking part in the action.

This week, we’ve done some odd jobs and put the last two planks in the Pipe. Tom, Dan, Oliver and Charlie along with Nick were on site on Tuesday carrying on with the Pipe, neddle gunning the east side and priming the metal work. They also found a broken brake block carrier on 3777 and oiled its brake rigging.

Nick went to fetch these from Harlows on Saturday morning, Dave started applying Kiki’s new identity, which can be seen in its entireity next weekend.

Thomas, Nick and I removed the 2 old planks from the East side, ready for the new planks to be dropped in and checked for size. Nick and Thomas also finished off the scraping of the underframe.

The plank was cut down in length and then run through our thicknesser to skim a few millimetres from the planks to remove some machining marks.

The planks were then dry fitted and drilled. The planks were removed and the painted into primer in the GUV.

The changable weather over the weekend has changed plans a little, so instead of fitting the planks first off, we took the opportunity to paint both new planks into undercoat.

Thomas paid some last attentions to 5209, picking out the red lettering on the bearing caps afterwhich he got the undercoat out and painted both ends of the Pipe.

At our event, Dave noticed that the hand brake rack on 3436 is slightly twisted on one side. This was improved with a tickle from the sledgehammer.

Our final act was to drop the 2 painted planks into the Pipe, which went well haing been pre-drilled and prepped.

That wraps up this weekend’s activities, if you can do pop down next weekend and see the event unfold, we’ll try and get some covert pictures through out the day too.

Cheers, Ross

Despite the inclement weather continuing, we have had a busy weekend tidying & sorting the theatrical vans in preparation for the upcoming Railways at Work Gala, doing some housekeeping, attending to gutters and a sticky wagon door, progressed the Pipe wagon and we also managed a bit of work on tank 3777.

We’re very much looking forward to the Railways at Work Gala which this year will (amongst many other attractions) feature two Pick-up-Goods trains operating in and out of the yard at Quorn.

It’s therefore important that the we get the right goods in the right places before we start.

Thanks to Jack and Andrew (the phantom box juggler) for their help too.

At our Open Weekend in July, Kiki took part adorned with our friends’ West Hill Wagon Works logos; however in preparation for the Railways at Work event Kiki will receive a more appropriate livery. The first step was to carefully remove the temporary vinyl lettering and clean the paintwork. Kiki‘s new livery will be revealed at the Railways at Work Gala on the 19th August.

The heavy rain on Saturday highlighted to us that some of the gutters on Test Car 2 and the Mess coach had become clogged with muck and debris. These were cleared out allowing the rainwater to flow along the gutters rather than overflowing down the coach sides.

Sunday and the weather improved allowing us to work on the Pipe wagon B740654; after a couple of weeks for the planks to settle we tightened all the door bolts on the west side & south end, and trimmed a couple of slightly long ones.

A final bit of scraping of door furniture then we set about applying some red-oxide primer to the door furniture and stanchions.

Whilst checking the wagons in preparation for railways at work, we came across a very reluctant drop-side door on steel high ADB280364. The cause was a lipped top latch post which was dressed lightly with a grinder and some red-oxide paint applied. This will make the door much easier to open and shut during the loading/unloading demonstrations.

Following the removal of the air driven pump from Tank wagon 3777 last week, the remaining section of pipework was removed. The brackets on the underframe were ground off and red-oxide primer applied.

So despite the weather we’re a lot closer to being ready for Railways at Work Gala, and we’ve made some good progress on the Pipe and Tank.

A quick reminder that our new Pocket Stockbooks are available from the team, pop down and see us at the south end of Quorn & Woodhouse yard at the weekend.

120 Pages with colour pictures and details of all the Quorn Wagon & Wagon group’s rolling stock in a handy A6 pocket sized ring bound booklet.

The Stockbooks are also available from our friends at West Hill Wagon Works and on eBay here.

Lastly pop a date in your diary, 19th & 20th August for the GCRs 2023 Railways at Work Gala, full details are on the GCR WebPage here.

All the best, Dave

After last weekends excitiment, this weekend has felt a bit slower and relaxed. Nick is away at summer camp, but that doesn’t mean progress is any less!

I started off with a last bit of tidying up after our open weekend with collecting a set of our steps left by the marquee. Dave, with grandson Oli to assist, removed the Deceleration meter bracket from the Bogie Bolster, B928135.

Joined by Mark and Dan, we then took a look at B740654 to see what further cleaning was required prior to paint. With a bit left to do on the North and East side, the Hydrovane was started and the needle guns deployed.

Along with the needle guns, I sanded off the east side and south end and started scraping paint of of the retained planks. Cut End preservative was applied to all cut plank ends on the wagon to help prolong their life. Dave drilled out one of the door reatrder pins for a split pin as it was noticed that one was missing.

The last job for the day was to remove the air driven pump from 3777 as this wagon will be reverted back to its Esso livery. The pump won’t be thrown away thoguh, I’m sure we can find a use for it.

Dave and I started applying wood primer to the ends and outward faces of the planks, the inner surfaces will have some clear preservative applied before the wagon returns to traffic.

All bare wood surfaces aside from the East side were painted in primer.

Next week will see the east side sanded and painted into primer (weather permitting), we might even start to apply some undercoat. See you then!

Hello everyone and welcome to the update after our open weekend. We had a good weekend despite the awful weather on Saturday. Thank you to everyone for the work put into make the event a success. It was great to see so many people visit us and to see the Test Car out and about the line behind the Heavy Tractor Group’s 37714.

Dave and Richard spent some time getting some props sorted for the looming Railways at Work gala and going along with the shunts for our event.

We also had a new arrival this week, a 3rd Esso tank wagon, 3777. Initial impressions of this are that it is quite solid, this got a wash and brush up on the Sunday when the weather allowed it.

To finish off this update, I’ll put up some pictures from the Open Weekend. Thank you again for all those who came to see our wagons and us. Next weekend should see some more work done on the Pipe wagon weather dependant, if not, I’m sure we’ll find something to do. Join us then!

Before we start, a quick reminder about next week and our Quorn Wagon & Wagon Open Weekend on the 22-23 July.
Take a close-up look at our fleet of restored wagons, tugs and brutes; talk to the team and find out what wagon restoration is all about.

See our Test Car 2 out for a run with the Heavy Tractor Group‘s Class 37, 37714.

Sorry no public on-board the Test Car on the Saturday, however we welcome visitors on-board for guided tours of Test Car 2 on the Sunday 23 July in Quorn yard.

For anyone wishing to grab picture of the typical 1980s test train with Test Car 2, the provisional departure timings for Saturday 22 July are as follows:-

Loughborough dep – 11:10
Swithland dep – 11:50
Loughborough dep – 12:30
Swithland dep – 13:20
Loughborough dep – 14:25
Swithland dep – 15:25

Also we are pleased to announce that our new ‘UPDATED’ Pocket Stockbooks will be available next weekend, as well as the popular Test Car 2 booklets.

Pop along and see us in the marquee at Quorn to get your copy.

Many thanks, it’s your support that allows us to continue our work restoring & maintaining the fleet wagons and the Test Car.

So this week we’ve made further progress with our 12T Pipe wagon B740654.

The west side top capping clamps were fitted.

Two new treated timber planks were sourced for the north end. The old planks were taken out and the new sized and slotted into place.

The planks were clamped into place, holes drilled and bolted up.

The top capping was fitted to the north end and any excess bolt length was trimmed.

A new label clip block was made for the east side as this was missing.

Edward was started up to provide some air and good progress was made needle gunning the underframe.

Kiki had a quiet naming ceremony.

Thanks to the Heavy Tractor Group who donated some diesel from the scrap Class 37 loco 37605. This will be put to good use in Test Car 2 to fuel the on-board generator that provides us with much needed extra power for our wagon restoration work on-site.

All the best, Dave

Hello and welcome to this week’s update from the team at Quorn.
The week started with us assisting the operations team during some shunting at Swithland sidings, to get some of our wagons sorted ready for our upcoming Open Weekend on the 22-23 July.
The Heavy Tractor Group’s 37714 was in charge of all the wagon movements.

The work on Test Car 2‘s bogies continued at Rothley, cleaning out rust and muck build-up in the bolster spring seats and re-packing to get the ride height within tolerance. The Test Car is now back on its bogies and ready to take part in our upcoming Open Weekend.

Tank wagon 3711 that has been at Rothley awaiting a replacement buffer was also attended to. This is now ready to go into traffic.

At Quorn the work on getting Kiki ready for the Open Weekend continued.
A new seat was manufactured because the old one was not fit for purpose anymore. The seat base and back boards were cut from an offcut of 3/4″ plywood, and new 2″ seat foams cut to shape. Coach bolts for mounting the seat were fitted with countersunk nuts, and the new seat covering material was cut to size.

The foam was glued to the back board then seat covering stapled along all sides of the seat back. The corners were trimmed as necessary, folded neatly and stapled into place.

The same process was carried out for the seat base which was test fitted into place on top of the battery box cover.

A back board trim panel for the seat back was measured, cut to size from an offcut of 1/8″ plywood, then covered and screwed into place.

The whole seat was then assembled with the frame pieces and bolted into place onto the battery box cover.

Kiki‘s front panels were then re-assembled.

The rear load bed was cleaned off and treated to a final scrape before being painted.

Some replacement treated wood planks for the doors of Pipe Wagon 740654 were collected from the timber-yard. The top and bottom planks on each door had new timber whilst the other planks to be replaced were selected from our stock pile.

The south west side door was then dismantled. Some of the seized and stubborn bolts had to be ground off.

One of the hinges needed straightening which required a bit of heat.

The new planks were trimmed to length and the edges bevelled. The door was then re-assembled inserting the new planks and using new nuts & bolts.

The door capping strips were re-fitted to the south west door tops.

The door retarders were fettled, positioned, holes drilled and bolted into place. Bolts were trimmed to length as necessary.

The north west door was then dealt with in the same manner, dismantled, planks cut to length, bevel edged and slotted into place.

The planks were bolted into place, then the retarders re-fitted. The capping strips were then re-fitted.

Pipe Wagon 740654 west side doors are now complete.

The final job on Kiki was to apply the temporary logos of our friends at West Hill Wagon Works who will be supporting us at our Open Weekend on the 22-23 July.
I know we don’t usually like using vinyl’s, however on this occasion it’s the best solution for the temporary livery; and will allow easy removal of the lettering when we get Kiki ready for application of her final colour scheme later in the summer.

Don’t forget to add our Open Weekend date to your diary, 22-23 July 2023.

• Over 20 of our restored goods wagons will be displayed in Quorn yard,
• Visiting wagon groups will have stands inside the Quorn yard marquee along with ourselves and our friends from West Hill Wagon Works,
• Get your camera’s ready on the Saturday (22 July) as Test Car 2 will be out for a run up and down the line representing a typical 1980s British Rail test train. Test Car 2 will also be open to the public for guided tours all day on the Sunday (23 July).
• Our van train will be running on the Sunday too.

There is more information on the GCR’s webpage here – Quorn Wagon & Wagon Open Weekend.

All the best, Dave.

Hello, and thank you for joining us for another update from Quorn. This week we’ve been progressing both the Pipe wagon and Kiki, plus some additional work by C&W on Test Car 2 in preparation for our upcoming open weekend.

As Test Car 2 is hoped to be running on at our event, we’ve got to make sure it has an annual exam and FTR, which will be its first annual exam. The guys at Rothley have been carrying out the exam and have lifted the coach to inspect the bogies. Thank you guys!

Back to Quorn and the weekend. The first job for Nick and I was to lift the A type container from the back of Nick’s lorry. This has been a long term resident next to the locomotive department’s mess room and has now become surplus. We’ve got a condition assessment to do, but more on this in future updates.

The container now safely on the floor, we moved onto continuing the floor in the Pipe. The now regular de-nailing, cutting and fitting went well, and barring a few reliefs to make in the end plank and the fixing down, the floor is completed.

Dave, Mark and Dan joined us on Sunday, and the team were able to split in two, with Nick, Dan and Mark finishing the Pipe fixing it down with the edge strips.

Dave and I continued the push on Kiki, Dave touching in the black and red paintwork and cleaning the lift up bed, with me re-wiring the hydraulic pump and tidying the main feed cabling.

With the wiring done, it was time for the big switch on, or in our case plug in…

Nothing went bang, so I’d call that a success! Thank you for reading, and join us again next weekend where we’ll be on the Pipe, or piping. See you!

Welcome to this week’s update and wasn’t it a hot weekend! We re-adjusted activites so the team didn’t melt. Our open weekend is 4 weeks away now, and we’ve started making prepartions for this by painting Kiki into a new livery. The Test Car has also gone to Rothley for an annual exam in preparation for our event

Oliver and I made a start on preparing so more planks for the Pipe, but after 2 we decided it was much too hot to continue.

Dave, Mark, Tom and Dan started stripping Kiki down to prepare the panels for paint using a mixture of scrapers, sanding and a trial of some spray on paint stripper from CTEC.

The team started applying paint to the tug and its removed panels, which I looked at the bed lifting gear which hasn’t worked since we’ve had Kiki. thankfully this was an empty hydraulic reservoir which was filled up.

I found some broken down insulation on the wires running to the pump so the hydraulic pump will be fully rewired. I also topped up the battery cells with deionised water.

It was just me on Sunday, so I re-coated all the panels on the tug and those removed. At the end of the day I re-assembled the panels on to the tug, so it is just waiting for detailing and the seat to be remade.

Hopefully its a bit cooler next week so we can get back on with the last planks in the floor of the Pipe. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

This week the team have taken part in the Great Central Railway’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations, with Test Car 2 open to visitors and the fantastic sight of a 50 wagon train, 34 of the wagons being ones that we have restored!

During the week the operations team had shunted Test Car 2 and tank wagon 60874 into the yard at Quorn ready for the celebration weekend.

Also during the week Nick collected one of the two A-Type containers that are being recovered from next to the loco shed at Loughborough. We’re not yet sure whether they will be saveable, but we’ll keep you posted.

Nick, Thomas, Daniel and Oliver, Tom and Mark helped look after visitors and our stand.

Richard, Jake and myself entertaining visitors into the Test Car.

Throughout the weekend goods trains have been operating, the star of the show being the 50 wagon train on Saturday hauled by BR Standard 9F 92214.
Thirty Four of the wagons in this train were ones that we have restored, the remaining 16 being the Windcutter Project 16T Mineral wagons.

The weather over the weekend had been kind to us, despite the forecast. The thunderstorm did however arrive just as we were packing up on Sunday.

Thanks to everyone who visited us in the Test Car over the weekend, it’s been great to talk to so many interested people, including the Mayor.

All the best, Dave

Hi all, welcome to a rather warm weekend’s update; this week continuing with the work on our Pipe Wagon B740654 and making a start on tidying up Kiki.

At the end of last weekend we’d completed about 1/4 of the floor planks in the pipe, so this week we continued.

More planks were cut to length, rebated and dropped into the floor. Once we have completed the floor plank cutting the planks will have preservative applied before final fitting.

Another potential problem with one of the side door opening retarders was noted. It appears that rust build-up between the spring seat and the underframe had caused the retarder to wedge itself into the frame. The rust was duly chipped out allowing the retarder to spring back into place.

With the area of shade disappearing by early afternoon we concluded work on the floor having now got 3/4 completed.

The external restoration work on Brush Electric Vehicle, Kiki has been started; removing the rotten floor panel, nose panel, electrical control equipment cover, broken seat and the battery box cover/seat mount.

The battery box cover was cleaned up and sanded.

A new floor panel was made from a ply offcut.

The battery box cover, seat mounting and floor panel were primed.

The fibreglass nose panel was sanded.

We hope to have Kiki ready to show off at our Quorn Wagon & Wagon Open Weekend in July.

Our OPEN WEEKEND event will be 22 – 23 July 2023, featuring:-
– A showcase of restored wagons,
– Typical 1980s Test Train with the Heavy Tractor Group Class 37,
– Test Car 2 guided tours,
– Visiting Wagon Groups from around the country,
– Freight train operating,
– Normal Passenger Service with steam and diesel traction,
– Real Ale Bar.

Come along and meet the team who have a passion for turning dilapidated wagons into something a little more presentable.
Here’s a couple of before and after examples:-

We’ll keep you posted with more details of our event nearer the time, in the meantime stick the date in your diary to come and visit us; 22-23 July 2023.

All the best, Dave