Tag: 3606

As we move into June, we get the spraying equipment out to give tank 1919 its undercoat.

On Saturday the final parts of the underframe were scraped and needle gunned.

A few areas had some red-oxide primer applied, which dried quickly in the sunshine.

During the week a replacement for a missing 4″ tank top cap was created by 3d printing, this was sealed to the adaptor and will be fitted to the tank in due course.

Whilst the 1940s weekend was getting into full swing in the yard, we got the BBQ equipment out to celebrate Ross’s birthday, as a much enjoyed change to a birthday cake. The salvaged and repaired picnic tables being put to good use.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ross ! Thanks for the BBQ 🙂

After lunch Edward the compressor was topped up with diesel and we got prepared to start applying the undercoat. The spray gun was set-up, the paint was mixed and thinned; once we had the right consistency this was poured through a filter into the paint sprayer can.

Over the next few hours Ross and myself sprayed the tank barrel, with a little help from Dan and Harry who also tried their hand with the spray gun.

Once the barrel was covered, we continued with the west side underframe.

On Sunday the last few areas of the east side suspension were given a coat of red-oxide, which thanks to the sunshine dried quite quickly.

The headstocks, buffers and east side solebar were hand brushed with undercoat. These areas were not easy to get to with the spray gun due to the wagon being in the dock. The ladders were also undercoated.

Another lorry curtain side sheet obtained from a lorry breakers was prepared ready to be used for van roof coverings. After cleaning and removal of the shackles and straps the sheet was measured up; luckily it’s just big enough to be able to get two 12T van roof coverings out of. Once Charlie had cut the sheets they were folded and stored.

My attention turned to making a jig that will help us with positioning of the Esso logo plates on tank 3621. Unfortunately the Esso plate brackets were removed at some point in the tanks life. The jig will allow us to position the brackets correctly for welding into place. Having tank 3606 alongside with brackets still in-tact made creating the jig much easier. Two ply sheets were clamped to the two upper and lower sets of brackets on 3606.

The ply were cut to shape to allow access to the brackets for welding. Holes were then drilled and the ply was bolted to the brackets.

Timber was then used to create a frame down to the solebar for positioning vertically, and a separate timber up against the handbrake rack to position longitudinally. Frame parts were then made to join the upper and lower ply sections together. Once I was happy with the fit, all parts were drilled and bolted together.

The finished jig was then un-bolted from 3606s brackets.

Once we have made the new Esso plate brackets for 3621 these will then be bolted to the back of the jig, and the frame positioned onto 3621 so the brackets can be welded into the correct place.

So a very productive (and enjoyable) weekend for the team, join us again next week, all the best, Dave

Hello and welcome to a sunny weekend update from Quorn; we’ve continued with getting tank 1919 ready for paint and completed a small repair to part of the brake rigging on the Lowfit.

Lowfit wagon B452718 is due to go to Rothley at some point for underframe repairs, in the meantime we need to progress other jobs which include a repair to a broken part of the brake rigging. One of the twin operating arms has a fractured spacer and a missing spacer. To make the repair easier, on Saturday the arm was removed from the wagon.

The spacer attachment areas were cleaned up and a new spacer cut from a piece of tubing.

The arm assembly was then clamped together and welded up.

The rigging arm was then treated to a coat of red oxide primer, followed by a coat of gloss black.

Dan continued with his work on the A-Type container, cleaning up more of the metalwork and applying red-oxide primer.

The main focus for the weekend has been needle gunning, sanding and scraping of tank 1919 to progress closer to being able to apply paint.

Where bare metal was revealed, red oxide primer was applied and when dry the north end headstock panel had grey undercoat.

On Sunday the sanding and scraping continued on tank 1919, also a couple of areas on tanks 3621 and 3606 were attended to.

Again any bare metal areas on all 3 tanks were treated to some red oxide primer.

The repaired brake rigging arm was re-fitted to the Lowfit after straightening the locating pins.

The sticker glue residue was removed from the west side of tank 1919.

Next week with most of the team away, we’ll be taking a break from reporting any activity until we’re back for the Bank Holiday bumper weekend at the end of the month.

Cheers for now, Dave

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s update from Quorn. With the south yard looking a little bit like Abbey Lane sidings with amount of Esso tank wagons around, the gang have pressed on with preparations on both 3606 and 3621.

Ernie removed the last two splash guard plates from 3621, which opened up the area around the wheels for cleaning down and hoovering. Nick set about straightening these with his most favourite tool to get them flat after the rust build up had bowed them at each end. Two of them require a weld repair due to corrosion.

Harry, Charlie and new starter Dan continued the laborious job of cleaning and de-scaling the end pockets and the chassis of the Esso tank. While they did this, Ernie and I removed the heating coil end plug from the wagon to clean out the threads and refit it.

Nick and I moved onto re-assembling the vacuum cylinder ready for re-fitting to 3606, which involved removing the nuts from the studs and re-fitting the studs into the dome.

The chassis preparation was continued on Sunday by Tom, Mark, Oliver, Harry, Charlie, Nick, Bradley and Ernie, with the weather thankfully a little drier than yesterday. It appears at some point Charlie got a little distracted by a spot on the Fish van body…

Dan, Mark and Charlie also managed to get some areas of both chassis primed or gloss coated

With the weather starting to look up, we’ll soon be moving onto surface preparation of the barrel on both 3621 and 3606, which means paint isn’t too far away. Now just the small matter of getting some more Esso plates…

The weekend of the 5th & 6th April is the railway’s Reunification Gala weekend, where we’ll have the Test Car open to visitors after a shunt around this week to allow opening up easier. If you plan on coming down, do pop in and visit us. Thanks for reading, and see you next weekend!

Hello every one and welcome to another update from Quorn. This week we are finally able to reveal what we’ve been teasing for a little while, what is actually happening to CEGB 48521. The tank train also had the wash and brush up finished, and a work continued generally on the tanks we have in at the moment. Onto the reveal then…

With thanks to our friends at the National Wagon Preservation Group, we were tipped off about a frame less tank barrel at a transport yard near Retford. The barrel arrived on Monday 9th March, and was dropped into place on the CEGB 48521 that’s just arrived from Foxfield. After a bit of careful nudging, the outlet flange was able to be bolted up to the discharge pipe of the chassis, locating the tank in the correct place. Despite being one barrel from Hurst Nelson and the chassis from Charles Roberts, the two fitted together well and await some parts to be made, and the barrel to be welded to the chassis. One of the pictures is courtesy of Jamie Swanson who kindly dropped in to assist.

Further thanks to Chris at NWPG, we now know the identity of both the chassis and the rest of the identity of the barrel. When the barrel is painted, it will continue to carry 3606 and the tank will used this identity going forward. The chassis used to carry 3797, so we shall make a small nod to its history in some way. It was found that there were no records for 3606 beyond 1975, so the barrel has been without wheels for at least 50 years!

We’ve now taken delivery of 6 hardwood door ‘noggins’ (top door frames) for the vans, which will help us finish the work on the 4 currently at Rothley. These will be stored until the vans make their way back to Quorn.

Dave and I concentrated on washing 3606 in the yard, making it a bit more respectable. We used some new chemicals which worked very well at getting the decades of built up grime off the tank. The paint has held up quite well considering it is likely to be is only coat!

While we did this, Nick, Ernie, Harry and Charlie fitted buffers to the north end of 3621 and dismantled a vacuum cylinder, getting it ready to fit to 3606.

A small shunt round in the morning moved 3606 into the dock, this was done by hand to reduce the risk of the barrel shifting at this early stage. Nick and Ernie made a start freeing the UIC screw couplings fitted to 3606.

Harry and new recruit Brad used the needle gun, hammer and chisels to descale the pockets adjacent to the buffers on 3621. We’ve not quite worked out why they’ve been designed as they are has they are quite the trap for water and other rubbish! Ernie also got stuck in on the action, removing two of the splash guards from 3621 and starting to chip away at the scale. Dan applied some primer to 3606, in one of the areas not got to before the barrel was fitted.

Oliver, Tom, Charlie, Mark and I concentrated on the west side of the tanks, running down each one with and cleaning all the grime off them. The new snowfoam from Jennychem worked very well at loosening the accumulated dirt, so it was a very worthwhile purchase!

That wraps up what has been a quite exciting week! We’ve now got a lot of cleaning down and preparation to do to get the tanks ready, but they are going to look fantastic! Join us again next weekend for another installment, thanks for reading!

Hello all, and welcome to another weekend’s update from us lot at Quorn. We’ve got a lot of plates spinning at the moment, with lots and lots of tank work going on. We’ve also had a go at track work this week, laying an extension to make ourselves more room for project vehicles.

We’ve continued the push on the tank wagon chassis, CEGB 48521, with Dave, Harry and Ernie making good progress on needling gunning and scraping the scale, corrosion and old paint from the chassis.

Nick, Charlie, Dan, Mark and I sorted out the siding extension, first the vehicles were moved down clear of the joint to the buffer stop. after then the materials were laid out and the buffer stop moved back to make the room for an extra 30ft of rail to be let in.

The primer came out to treat the cleaned down chassis areas, with quick progress being made. A kit of vacuum cylinder parts was retrieved from the van train in the down lie-by, which we’ll revisit later.

With the sleepers laid out and the rails dropped in the chairs, it was time to fit the fish plates and key the rails into the chairs. With a bit of packing done, the vehicles were rolled back down the buffer stop and tidying up around the site and moving the steps back into position.

More needle gunning occurred on Sunday, with more areas receiving the prep, prime and then some satin black top coat.

Now the track has been extended, the attention then turned to the tanks in the yard, giving them a wash. The east side of the rake was tackled, with the west side still to do. The before and after on the yellow Shell Lubricating Oils tank was startling!

While the tank washing took place, Charlie busied himself cleaning and servicing our spare BEV parts.

An unserviceable vacuum cylinder was dropped into one position of the chassis, firstly the dome then the cylinder. This cylinder will never be used, so a supporting strap will be manufactured to ensure the cylinder does not rotate in its trunions. The last job of the day was to push the chassis down into the yard.

Next weekend, some of the teasers and work we are doing will start to make a little more sense. With good enough weather, we will continue down the west side of the tank train prior to its departure on the 25th March.

Hello and welcome to the first March 2025 update from Quorn. This week we welcome another arrival, the chassis from an ex. Esso 35T tank, and we get to work freeing off the seized brake rigging.

The chassis was built in 1958 by Charles Roberts as a 35T tank for Esso. It passed to the CEGB at Meaford Power Station and was renumbered 48521. At some point the tank barrel was removed and it was preserved at the Foxfield Railway in 1991. As yet we have not established it’s original Esso identity.

The chassis had arrived with a number of old sleepers stored on top; the first job was to get these removed which Nick did on Friday.

With the chassis empty and looking very much like a part-built Airfix kit, we could give it a proper inspection. In general it’s structurally in very good order, although the brakes are completely seized on, the couplings are seized up and all the rubber hoses are perished. On Saturday with Nick, Ernie, Ross, Charlie, Harry and myself on-site we made a start trying to free up the brakes so the chassis could be moved. A couple of pins were removed from the brake rigging to separate the rigging into sections so we could tackle each end of the chassis separately.

The seized brakes were however being really stubborn, so the Volvo was called upon to provide a little extra grunt to move the bow girders and subsequently get the brake blocks free from the wheels.

This proved successful and allowed us to move the chassis from the yard into our working area. Once there we could get the power tools and heating equipment to the chassis. Ernie got to work removing the spark guard plates which Ross had numbered up. Some of the old tank barrel mounting rivets were also removed.

The pressure washer was used to remove as much of the muck, debris and old grease from the brake rigging joints, whilst the remaining parts of the old barrel mountings were dealt with.

The brake blocks and carriers were removed from the south end, a number of which required a little heat to release the pins; these were then cleaned up by Charlie and Harry.

We worked our way back along the south end brake rigging joint by joint, heating where necessary to free up the pins and allowing each section of the rigging to move freely. The joints were then well oiled.

Pins were removed from the vacuum brake cylinder piston rods, and heat was applied to the cross shaft, however despite this the centre section of the rigging and cross shaft parts were not wanting to move freely. All the joints were well oiled and left to soak.

A start was made removing the brake blocks and carriers from the north end and the brake cylinder mounting trunnion bolts were freed off; whilst Nick and Ernie had a go at freeing of the south end coupling with a little heat.

Sunday continued much the same with Nick, Ross, Ernie, Mark, Tom, Oliver, Dan, Charlie and myself on-site. Despite the oiling up yesterday our efforts to try and un-seize the cross shafts failed. We therefore decided that it would be easier to get the vacuum brake cylinders out of the way; they need to be removed anyway for overhaul. The piston rods and safety loops were removed from both cylinders, one release valve came away easily however the other was seized solid. Dan made a start refurbishing one release valve.

Nick and Charlie continued with the north end brake gear dismantling and cleaning up whilst Ross, Ernie and myself got the vacuum cylinders ready for removal. The Volvo was used to lift the cylinders out of the top of the chassis, a much easier task without a tank barrel in the way, rather than having to drop them out underneath. In order to release each cylinder from their trunnions we did need to burn off the lower mounting bolt as these had been fitted the wrong way round.

The second cylinder was removed in the same manner, with a bit of heat needing to be applied to the trunnions to release them.

Making the most of the sunshine, Mark, Tom and Oliver got to work with some Black Gloss on the north end of the GUV.

With the tank chassis vacuum brake cylinders out of the way we were able to dismantle the brake adjuster and apply some heat to release the cross shafts.

We then moved along the chassis towards the north end heating and oiling to release the each of the seized brake rigging joints.

The linkages between the north end bow girders needed dismantling to free them off.

The brake rods, links and pins were all cleaned up.

Then re-assembled with a good dose of grease in all joints.

The final parts to be assembled were the brake adjuster; to do this span-set straps were fitted across the bow girders at both ends to bring the blocks up to the wheels. Then with 1/2″ spacers fitted between one block and the wheel at each end, the straps tightened. The adjustment pin was then fitted in the nearest aligning hole and the straps released. The handbrakes were then checked for operation at both ends.

Although there is still much to do, we’re happy to report we now have a free rolling chassis with operational handbrakes.

Join us again next week; all the best, Dave