Category: Updates

Hello everyone and welcome to another Quorn update. We thought it would have been a wash out, but we’ve managed to do quite a lot! The main event was the annual exam of the Van Train, ready for the Last Hurrah gala.

I’ll start with some good news though B954268 has now received is new wheelsets, fitted by the C&W department. The brakes have been re-assembled and adjusted and it’s had a test run with the Class 10. The van is due to run at the Last Hurrah before an external refurb in the new year. Sadly, years stood stationary not in use have not been kind to it.

Saturday was a wash out, so we ended up continuing to fit LED lights in the GUV. We got 2 fitted, so that leaves 2 left to do.

On Sunday, we got to the annual exam on the vans. Mostly small defects, but one suprising major one, fortunately all able to be fixed. Tom, Dan and Oliver got started on oiling the brake rigging, Mark on the screw couplings and Nick and myself inspecting.

On to the defects then: B852838 required a brake adjustment, B850498 had 3 loose bolts on the underkeep/tiebar, B786348 had a minor repair to the vacuum release cord, M730562 was booked with a loose veranda floor plank, B777728 also had some loose bridle bolts for which the hot spanner had to come out to tighten the bolts which were re-assembled with spring washers. B777171 ended up with the major defect, this being a cracked disc in the drawhook rubber arrangement.

Oliver and I tackled the veranda floor in the LMS Brake van while Nick, Mark and Tom tackled the broken drawgear disc, initially by searching for a spare disc then dismantling and re-fitting the spare disc. One of the cracks is quite old, but we think it happened as the disc had been mounted the wrong way round, increasing the stress on the disc beyond its limit.

Unfortunately we lost the light before adjusting the brakes on B852838, so this will be caught next week so that it can join the ball. Thanks for reading and join us next week to see what we do alongisde the brakes on B852838!

Hello all, and welcome to another of our updates. Our focus has been getting A6090 coated in grey undercoat, ready for a coat of black gloss.

Looking forward, we want to put our BRUTE Trolleys in covered accommodation. That’s the six restored ones and the two that require further work, to stop them deteriorating further while their time comes. The 6 restored ones will end up in the BR Palvan, whilst a home had yet to be identified for the unrestored BRUTEs. For ease of access, B784409 was chosen. Nick and I moved various items on the floor and lifted the trollies in, and backfilling the trollies with the stored items. Lastly some timbers were wedged between the trollies to prevent them moving. We’ll check these when the vans have run at the next gala.

Whilst in a tidying up mood, Charlie and Ernie gathered the wood removed from the Pipe wagon and placed it in the pile of wood for the railway’s Bonfire Event.

Sunday ended up being the warmer and drier day of the two, so we used that to be able to paint the tank. We let the tank dry in the morning sun and got the undercoat sorted out, then we all hit it, managed to get round the whole tank before 4pm.

Well, I say all of us, Dan did spend the morning finishing off the signwriting on the tool van, B854097, before joining us on the tank.

We’re working on a plan to finish off the tank, but for now it will stay in undercoat. Painting a lot of gloss paint at this time of year would be a folly. We’ll leave it there this week. Now that A6090 is now in undercoat, we’ll focus on getting 3777 further cleaned down and possibly primed. Join us next week to see how we get on!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s update. This week we’ve concentrated on A6090, ending the weekend with the wagon in primer ready for the next stage.

Being the Leicestershire half term week, the Baldwins and Nick came down to Quorn during the week and started to apply primer to the underframe of the tank. They also managed to tackle the south end of the barrel.

Nick and Ernie concentrated on the final cleaning down of the barrel of the tank, with a final blow down on Saturday afternoon.

I took the opportunity on to have another play with the Brake Test Rig, testing the brakes on the Sturgeon and on 1408 following a procedure I’d written based off of a BR document. There are still some tweaks to make to the rig and procedure, including a suite of new gauges, but we’ve got the makings of a good set up. I refitted the castor on the test rig and fitted a bung in the Brake Pipe of 1408, removing an extra Schrader test point.

With 8 of us on site on Sunday, we made the decision with the weather being good to hit the rest of the tank in red oxide primer to carry on the good work.

Dan focused on finishing the signwriting on B854097.

That about covers us for this week. Hopefully next week we’ll be able to get the tank undercoated but with the nights drawing in and the clocks falling back we’ll have to see how we manage. Join us then!

Hello everyone! Our little end of Quorn yard has seen the Pipe wagon completed this week, and more progress has been made on readying the two tanks for paint.

The last thing to finish off the Pipe was the axleboxes and 2 split pins on the underkeep under the dock side of the north axle. I attended to these, giving the wagon a clean bill of health. This can now join the mixed goods train, releasing space in the siding for another project vehicle.

Nick and Charlie started the day by continuing to eradicate the last remnants of algae from the outside of the tank, and then Nick moved on to finishing the repairs to the filler necks on both tanks, filling in the holes left by two different methods of filling the tanks.

Barry and Ernie continued the clean down on A6090, Barry back on the needlegun. After finishing with the needle gun, Barry then picked up a linishing disc for the grinder to see how it would finish the surface of the tank, whihc left a surface good for priming.

I spent some time on the vacuum test rig, continuing to explore the air brake side of the rig and testing it with the Vanwide/VEB. All seems to have worked a treat, so now just a case of writing up a procedure of how to use that side of the rig.

I also spent some time cleaning up the other Hydrovane plate.

Harry and Andy came by on Sunday to carry on work on the GUV, doing some more filling, sanding and painting.

Barry and I finished off by sorting out the BEVs, topping up batteries, and looking at bit more in depth into Kiki as its getting a bit warmer than it used to when motoring.

That covers this week’s activities, join us again next week to see what we get up to! Its looking like there is the prospect of at least some primer on one of the tanks. Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s update. This week has been the railway’s Autumn Gala and it is always a highlight to see the wagons running. We even saw the two freights passing at Quorn, and both the mixed goods and the van train hauled by 2999 Lady of Legend. None of this has impacted progress though!

The signwriting on the Pipe is now finished, courtesy of Dan.

I noticed some undercoat showing through after varnishing the top caps of the doors, so sanded down two plank sections and re-glossed them, ready for a coat of varnish the next day.

Nick, Charlie and Oliver finished up sorting out the dock and stock after the box van at the end of the dock road had been removed. We’ve set everything back up and have settled back in.

On Sunday, I finalised the Pipe, carrying out an inspection and vacuum brake test. The vacuum test passed with flying colours, though I found water in the axle boxes, so these will need to be done next week.

Nick started with the pressure washer on 3777 and A6090, finishing off the cleaning of the tanks by removing the algae and other residue.

Carrying on with the momentum on the Hydrovane, I fitted locks to the canopy. On the subject of plant, I also made a start at re-comissioning the air brake side of the little diesel rig which seemed to work, aside from some gauges being broken.

That about wraps up this week, next week will see the Pipe finished and work on the tanks will continue in earnest. See you then!

Hello all, thanks for joining us for another update from Quorn. Nick has been away on a scout camp, so its been down to the rest of the team to hold the fort. We’re one wagon plate away from finishing the Pipe, and A6090 has been moved to the dock and needlegunned on the west side.

Before getting onto the main event, Barry and I fixed the Hydrovane. Barry had got the feed pipe made new during the week, and I’d got a new compressor air inlet filter. I also managed to find a new oil filter in our spares and some appropriate oil to give the engine an oil change.

Barry then carried on with the needle gun, this time on the west side underframe and south headstock of A6090.

Sunday was a much warmer and, according to the forecast, drier day than Saturday so I bit the bullet and decided that today would be varnishing day. Mark, Oliver and Dan joined me in spreading some ‘Rothley Nectar’ over the bauxite paintwork on the Pipe

Tom carried on where Barry had left off with the West side underframe. Mark and I got in on the action once we’d finished varnishing.

Dan had another go at signwriting, this time the wagon plate on the west side of the Pipe.

That wraps up the work undertaken this week. Next weekend is the Autumn Steam Gala, but we’ll be continuing the push on the tanks. See you again next week!

Hello everyone, here’s another weekend update from us at Quorn. Progress has continued on A6090 and the Pipe is very close to completion.

I concentrated on the remaining signwriting on the Pipe, completing the Empty to wording on the East side of the wagon.

Nick concentrated on A6090, scraping the barrel of yet more paint trying to get to a stable layer. In places the old Shell/BP black and white livery was coming through so we’re getting down the layers now.

Barry, Tom and Oliver joined the push on A6090, with Tom and Barry using the needle gun and Oliver joining Nick on the scraper.

The weather sadly prevented any varnishing on the Pipe, so I ended up moving from one thing to another until the Hydrovane burst it’s compressed air feed hose. Barry helped me strip it down, and we’ll be sorting that between us for next weekend.

Oliver and I swept out the A type container to have a look at the floor, which aside from being poorly supported seems to be in okay condition.

Hopefully the weather is good enough to varnish the Pipe next weekend, but we’ll take whatever comes. Join us then and see what we get up to!

Hello everyone and welcome to another QWW update. For me, this weekend has been one of much signwriting, everyone else was concentrating on A6090.

Before that though, we continue to tidy up after Railways at Work, and with the van train back at Quorn, Nick and Charlie put the barrels back in the barrel van to protect them from the elements.

I made a start chalking up the Pipe for its signwriting, starting with the west side number panel. By the end of the day, the west side was complete barring a few words on the ‘Empty to’ wording.

Nick, Richard, Mark and Dan sequestered themselves under and around A6090 to begin the big scraped down of the underframe. We think the paint on the tank has been affected by being stored in a tunnel as it was coming off it large chunks.

I with coffee in hand got an early start on Sunday picking up where I left off. I taped off the box for the branding and let a distracted Dan have a go at painting it

I moved to the east side to make a start there, assisted again by Dan who had a ago at the B of the number panel. This just leaves me with the branding to apply on the east side and both D plates.

Nick and Richard continued to scrape the underframe of the tank, with most of what he scraped ending up in Nick’s boots.

The last job of the weekend was to have another crack at Hector’s wheel, which is now fixed, barring being inflated again, and maybe another lick of paint.

Thanks for reading, and see you again next week!

Good evening all, and welcome to another QWW update. This week despite the heat, we’ve fitted a vacuum throughpipe, tried to sort out a wheel and tyre for Hector and Andy is making more progress on the GUV.

Being the type of tank it is, A6090 was built unfitted. This is ordinarily fine, however most good trains at the GCR run with vacuum and without a throughpipe, this wagon is less likely to be used. Having recovered a complete throughpipe on his travels, Nick decided it would be put to use on the tank.

Nick assisted by Tom and Mark, first removed one swan-neck from the pipe. The pipe measured at nigh on 15ft, which made it too short initially for the underframe. Removing the swan-neck will allow us to extend the pipe, but more on that later.

The pipe was hung underneath the wagon in its approximate route down the inner solebars with large cable ties. Borrowing the magnetic mount drill from Rothley, Barry, Tom and I drilled holes in the underframe to accept the pipe clamps to hold the pipe to the wagon.

Jamie at Carriage and Wagon very kindly whipped us up a 2ft6in length of pipe to screw onto the rest of the throughpipe, leaving us to thread one end of it and assemble the complete pipe. (Thanks Jamie!)

Back under the wagon, the straight coupler was fitted using plenty of jointing compound, tightened up then the extension piece screwed into the coupler. The swan-neck was fitted, again with plenty of jointing compound.

This is when the heavens opened, so we made a quick effort to tidy everything up and hide! The rest of the day were to tidy up around the yard, and take Danny for a skip run.

Andy has spent a bit more time this weekend filling the GUV in the attempt to smarten it up, we’ll soon be progressing to a coat of paint for it livery yet to be decided.

Last week, Dave had spotted the Hector had a flat tyre and was leaning over in the garage. This week, I attempted to re-inflate it but to no avail. Barry and I separated the rim to discover a small hole in the inner tube. A spare was fitted but we struggled to get the locking ring back into the rims, so we admitted defeat this weekend and will have a rethink.

I think that is everything this week, next week we are hoping for slightly cooler weather so we can continue with the Pipe and get that over the line. There will also be a vacuum leak of test to do for A6090. Join us then and thank you for reading.

We start September with Test Car 2 open again, this time supporting the Diesel Gala long weekend in some glorious sunshine at Quorn.

Unfortunately we didn’t have the demonstration wagon with the Test Car so no slip/coupling demos; however we still fitted the slip coupling and were able to show the special slip/brake flashing lights unit in action using the diesel brake tender further along the siding to simulate a ‘slipped’ test wagon.

Many thanks to the Type One Locomotive Company for their support this weekend with 1705; this was the first time that Test Car 2 has been coupled with a Class 47 in preservation. On Sunday Mark and Tom helped out welcoming visitors into the Class 47 cab.

In the 1980s a Class 47 was normal traction used to haul Test Car 2 during slip/brake testing; so we’ve been able to re-create (well nearly) the look of this 1987 test train.

Thanks to everyone (including a special visitor) who took the time to visit us in the Test Car and to listen to myself, Barry and Richard talking about how and why British Rail carried out testing of freight wagons.

And thank you to everyone who supported us by purchasing our new booklets, or by visiting our little stall.

In other news Andy & Harry have made a start on the east side of the GUV M94052, during the last week the bodyside has been scraped down and any bare metal treated with red oxide primer.

To end, here’s a few of our pics from the weekend. Join us again next week when we’ll be back to some wagon work, all the best, Dave