7/1/24 – Happy New Year back at Quorn

We start 2024 back at Quorn Wagon Repair Sidings, getting stuck into work on Palvan B781908.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago that the roof from the Palvan was completely disintegrated by the strong winds, leaving most of the rusted screws still in the wagon.

With Nick, Ross, Mark, Tom, Oliver, Dan and myself on-site the Palvan was soon cleared of the last items of rubbish, a filing cabinet and the very sodden remains of some old paperwork. Danny helping out taking the rubbish to the skip.

Myself and Ross got to work removing all the old rusted screws and unbolting the roof end hoops.

Nick, Oliver and Dan removed the north west corner Oleo type buffer that had lost pressure and was stuck in. The bolt threads were cleaned and oiled before a replacement buffer from our stock was fitted in place. The south end of the wagon was fitted with a screw type coupling rather than the (correct for a Diagram 1/211 wagon) instanter coupling. Oliver helped Nick replace this with a correct instanter type coupling.

Dan helped Tom cleaning up the roof end hoops, then painting them in red-oxide primer. These were then stored away safe for when they are needed for the new roof sheet fitting.

Any remains of tattered roof sheet were removed and the above door noggins were unbolted, although most of the bolts were badly wasted causing them to snap off rather than unscrew.

The internal secondary protective ply panelling side sheets were removed; these will not be re-fitted as they serve little purpose for our use of the wagon as it will not be used for carrying palletised goods. The sheets will be saved for possible re-use elsewhere. The clalk-boards & brackets were removed; and as the rotten side sheets will be replaced, Ross was using the hammer and punch method of seized bolt removal.

Measurements were taken of the wagon in preparation for ordering the replacement roof sheet wood. As we still haven’t found a source for a like for like replacement of the full size sheet of 17’11” x 8’8″ we will do as we have successfully done on other vans, and use four 10′ x 5′ sheets of ¹/₂” plywood cut to width and jointed together with the strips of offcut material.

All the top faces of the roof metalwork were scraped and cleaned of any rust, then given a coat of red-oxide paint.

All twelve of the large door hinges on the Palvan were partially seized up making opening and closing the doors very difficult. Nick and Ross used the oxy-propane to loosen up the hinges after which they were oiled.

Futher detailed measurements were taken for the replacement side panel sheets; including a count-up of the number of new bolts required. Six sheets of ply from our stock were assessed as suitable to use for these replacement sheets and put aside ready for cutting, painting and fitting.

We also decided that we should re-start the work on getting Test Car 2’s generator up and running again. Ross took a look at removing the injectors, one of which was decidedly wet and discoloured compared to the other two. We intend to send these away for testing, and refurbishment as necessary.

Our shed has also suffered from the recent poor weather; a window frame and glass pane had become very loose. This was dealt with by fitting a sheet of ply.

Thanks for reading, join us again next week when we aim to continue the progress with Palvan B781908.

We’ll leave you with another pic of our two recently restored tanks A6090 and 3777 that we hope to see running during the up-coming Winter Steam Gala, all the best, Dave