Hello everyone and welcome to another update from Quorn.We’re doing a little bit of work behind the scenes on the website, so things may change in the near future but for now we’re using what we’ve got. This week, signwiriting has continued on the Catfish and with some help, we’ve continued cleaning up the GUV.
Firstly, to Mark we wish a happy birthday, and thank you Alison very much for the tasty cake in the shape of our very own 3711.
Dan, Dave and I have pushed on with the signwriting, getting stuck in with the Straw letting, and Dan the white on the solebars.
A team of volunteers from the Young Rail Professionals applied a coat of Maroon gloss to the east side of the GUV. Thank you to those who gave their time!
Mark, Nick, Oliver, Tom and Ernie all started work on the West side of the GUV. Due to the condition of the west side, we’re having to bare metal a fair portion of the vehicle, which got a coat of primer once cleaned of all paint.
By the end of the day, the south-west side of the GUV had been bared and primed, along with parts of the panel the other side of the door. The west side of the Catfish are now complete, with just some signwriting to do on the dock side.
Thanks for reading, next week we should have finished the Catfish and made a good progress on the GUV. Join us then!
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!
Hi everyone, welcome to this weeks update from the team at Quorn. The weather has hampered our plans to get some paint on the Catfish; however we’ve kept ourselves busy. Some stock positioning shunting too place whilst we continued with progress on the LMS brake van, some more items on the to-do-list and Test Car 2s generator.
During the week Tom, Dan and Nick continued with painting on the LMS Brake Van M730562 at Rothley, handrails, lamp brackets, swan necks and underframe were progressed. A new step board was also made and fitted.
The new paint arrived ready for the two Catfish wagons, however the inclement Saturday morning weather meant that wagons were too wet for us to apply any paint, so Oliver made sure it was stored away safe.
The old crank pulley oil seal was removed from the timing cover from Test Car 2s generator; the cover was then de-greased and pressure washed.
A new seal was then fitted using a suitably sized drift and our makeshift press with a final knock-into position with a hammer.
Hector’s cab parts were loaded onto one of the box vans for safe keeping and we sorted out some spare bolts in readiness for box van repairs before the Class 37, 37714 arrived to manage various shunt moves at Quorn for stock positioning.
Ross and myself continued with cleaning up the timing cover mating surfaces on Test Car 2s generator, and repairs to some of the generator wiring.
Richard resurrected some old skills in repairing and servicing two of Nick’s 1970s record players.
Ernie and Nick installed a lighting power supply cable across to the Fish Van on the dock; this will help us as the nights draw-in.
Mark, Tom, Oliver Dan and Nick managed to a bit of house keeping in the short spell between the Sunday morning rain and the lunchtime rain. The rotten sleepers were moved from the dock to the wood pile for the bonfire.
A general tidy up of the area on the dock and some gardening will help improve the access for vehicles to the dock.
Hello everyone, and thanks for joining us for another update from Quorn. The autumn weather is definitely settling in, so we’ve been ticking jobs off the back burner list. During the week, Dan finished the signwriting on the LMS brakevan, which now leaves some underframe painting to finish.
With rain predicted on Saturday, I started looking at re-assembling the genset in the Test Car. Naturally, I started by taking it apart more… To re-attach the fuel pump, I wanted to check the timing on the geartrain, so ended up draining the coolant from the system and removed the radiator and water pump to gain access to the timing case. As I was removing components, Charlie took them outside and cleaned them with the pressure washer.
Nick and Ernie took a look at the drawer in the kitchen on the coach, which has been broken for a few months. The drawer was re-assembled with additional L brackets to re-attach the front of the drawer. Back in the generator room, I found broken wires on the magnetic pickup and the dynamo, which may have contributed to the issues with the generator.
On Sunday,we started by moving the barrels from E281882 back into B765272 to put them back into covered storage after Railways At Work.
We then moved onto some light landscaping, to clear an access ramp to get Danny up onto the dock to help in clearing that up.
I went back into the Test Car and finished piping up the fuel system, which leaves just the control actuators and the cooling system left to re-assemble. I also repaired the intermediate cover which had some loose rivets.
The light landscaping turned into heavy landscaping to fill in some of the ramp way to make it less steep for Danny, who eventually made it onto the dock.
Dan and I went to test the air brakes on the TEA tank, however part way through the test, it was found that one bow girder was not moving when the brakes were applied. We stopped the test and sent Dan under to lubricate and tap the linkages to free them. This didn’t remedy the seizing this weekend, so we’ll look at it again another time.
Thanks for reading! we should be back on the Catfish next weekend, weather permitting, to apply the black paint. Joins us then!
Good evening all, this week the gang have applied more paint to DB993560, the steps into the tool van have been repaired, and being the Autumn Steam Gala some train spotting may have taken place.
During the week, Dan has been down at Rothley making a good go at the sign writing on the LMS brakevan. He only has the number, region and tare weight left to apply on the east side.
At the weekend the gang applied red oxide to the W irons, the north end headstock and platform. This also extended to the insides of the frames and the underside of the wagon.
Mark and Dan applied white undercoat to the hand rails and hand wheels, getting them ready for gloss.
Last week, somebody (at the moment remaining nameless..) managed to crack one of the steps on the main steps up to the tool van. The rotten boards were removed with replacements cut and strengthening battens added to other steps. The team also secured the loose handrail.
Lastly, being the Autumn Steam Gala the vans and the tanks have been out on the line which is always a pleasant sight to see.
Thank you for reading and see you next week where we might even get to applying some gloss to the Catfish(es?).
Hello everyone and thanks for joining us for this week’s update from Quorn. The Catfish have been the sole focus of attentions, with DB983393 having is priming finished and DB993560 getting primer applied.
Ernie started grinding back the welding I’d done on the outside of the hopper while I continued doing the last bit of welding on the big panel, up each side of the patch and a small amount on the inside of the hopper.
The platform that was cleaned down last week had primer applied by Nick, who then moved onto the other hopper. The dock side of the hopper bar the w-irons got a coat of primer. He then started to scrape the more restrictive areas of the hopper that haven’t been finished, joined by Oliver who used the needle gun to clean down the south end walkway.
Dan and Oliver made a start on cleaning the inside of the hopper with the pressure washer, more on this in future weeks.
Mark joined Ernie on the grinder, and tidied up the welds on the big panel, lastly Ernie got to applying paint to the panels the have been ground back
Nick continued applying paint around the hopper, moving round the West side. Charlie continued his mission to keep the dock tidy by cutting the grass.
Thanks for joining us for this week’s update. Join us next week where is will likely be the last bit of cleaning and priming on the hopper.
Hello everyone and welcome to another update from Quorn. This week we’ve carried on painting the LMS Brake van and done the last bit of paint removal on the Catfish. During the week Nick and Tom got the LMS brake van into its bauxite gloss coat, this now awaits signwriting.
Using the Hydrovane last time, I noticed the the starter motor was loose so Oliver, Dan and I disassembled the side panel and removed the starter motor to tighten up its mount adapter.
Oliver set to work needle-gunning the the operating platform on DB983393, which is the last bit of this wagon that needs to be primed.
Dan and I investigated a new acquisition, a petrol pressure washer. It was bought as a non-runner with no spark. Dan fitted a new spark plug and we borrowed an ignition coil from a generator, which got the little Honda engine running. There are some leaks in the water side on the hose, so we’ll see how this ends up working.
This week some undercoat has been applied to the LMS Brake Van M730562 at Rothley; meanwhile at Quorn there has been some good progress getting primer on Catfish DB983393.
Tom, Dan and Nick worked on the Brake Van at Rothley.
With many hands making light work on Saturday at Quorn, Tom, Mark, Oliver and Dan got stuck into cleaning down the last few bits on DB983393 with the needle gun and sanders. They were later joined by Nick and Charlie.
Ernie started applying primer to areas already cleaned down last week.
While the rest of the team concentrating on the cleaning and painting, Ross started to weld up the outside of the patches on DB993560. It’s the first time Ross had welded a panel inclined towards him and it turned out to be a bit tricky!
The sun got to be in a position where it made the welding visor unusable, so he got a bit distracted and gave Hector a haircut.
The Catfish painting continued in earnest through the afternoon.
With Ross otherwise engaged on Sunday, Mark, Tom, Dan, Oliver and myself continued with the needle gun, scrapers and wire brushes on the ends of Catfish DB983393.
Some more primer was then applied.
Thankfully the primer is quick drying as the rain set-in during the afternoon.
Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for another update from Quorn. After last week’s working on B954268, we’ve moved back onto the 2 Catfish; getting DB983393 to get this ready for paint.
Initially it was out with the scrapers to make a start on the solebar.
We quickly got bored with that, so moved onto striking up the Hydrovane and using the needle gun and the sanders to clean down the solebar and hopper respectively.
Dave took a short trip on the Brake van in the Parcels set to monitor Palvan’s riding. He was pleased to report that there were no surprises and that it rode quite well.
Dave and I took a brief interlude from the sanding/de-scaling to check a R Y Pickering builders plate for the TEA that Dave had drew up and 3D printed. I also brought in a piece of BR history, a Metallurgical Defect Meter.
Sunday was more of the same, but on the other side of the Catfish, so instead of repeating darker pictures of the same activity, I’ll leave you with a picture of the cleaned down article. Both Catfish are rapidly reaching the same point, so we’ll soon be breaking out the primer. Thanks for reading!
Hello and welcome to this week’s update from the team at Quorn. The Brake Van B954268 that was hurriedly painted a few weeks ago in readiness for the Railways at Work Gala has developed some blistering of the paint on its West side. Our thoughts are that some of the replacement wood planks may not have had time to fully dry out before the primer was applied.
We understand the brake van is required for operation next weekend, therefore on Saturday Nick, Ernie and Charlie we made a start to scrape and sand the affected areas back to the bare wood so it could be made presentable.
The paintwork on the East side of the Brake Van has faired much better, so I was able to make progress with the remaining sign writing.
The black maintenance data panel box was applied and the builders plate picked out too.
One inner veranda plank that wasn’t replaced before the Gala was also attended to with a replacement piece of timber cut to size and fitted.
The lower edge part of the roof covering was painted Bauxite to blend in with the bodyside.
Sunday saw Mark, Tom, Oliver and Dan join Nick & myself on the brake van. Some more scraping and sanding was carried out on the West side, and thinned undercoat applied to hopefully soak into the bare wood.
The undercoat dried very quickly and some gloss Bauxite was applied to the affected areas.
A couple of areas on the East side were also treated in the same manner.
The running number on the West side was affected by the paint re-work, so this was touched up.
The East side maintenance data panel was finished off, the workshop/depot codes represented are for Newark (5480) and Tinsley Repair Sidings (5683).
The ‘Danger Overhead Live Wires’ warning plates were re-fitted to both sides.
We do realise that the problems with some dampness in the wood affecting the paintwork on this brake van could still be underlying, however it is presentable for operational use again. Depending on how it weathers, we will most likely need to re-visit the sides again for a full sand-down and another repaint.
