Hi and welcome to our weekly update from Quorn. The Lowfit has received some paint, work continues on tank 3689, and 3621’s signwriting is completed.
Mark, Tom, Oliver, Dan and Daniel did some more needle gun work on the underframe of tank 3689.
Dan did some needle gun work and red-oxide painting on a vac cylinder dome.
Charlie did some tidying up in the garage and some vac cylinders were put into storage. Ernie did some more lamp repairs.
Nick did some cleaning out of rust from under the tank supports on 3689. He also installed the new first aid equipment and notices in our Mess Coach booking-on point.
Mark, Dan, Daniel and Oliver took advantage of the warmer/dryer weather and got stuck in to applying red-oxide primer to the majority of the Lowfit wagon.
I finished off the last couple of bits of signwriting on tank 3621.
Charlie fitted a couple of the heater vents to the seat box sides in the Mess Coach.
I painted 3621’s Esso plate attachment bolts in red-oxide, and when dry applied the blue.
Ernie and myself dropped the doors and end panels on the Lowfit, wire brushed and applied undercoat the the insides of the doors.
We then raised the doors and made a start applying undercoat to the door sides and ends.
That wraps things up for this week, I’ll leave you with a pic of Standard 2 78018 steaming past our Mess Coach on her last day in service before withdrawal for overhaul.
Hello and welcome to the news from Quorn this week. We continue with vacuum cylinder repairs, Esso barrel plates and some housekeeping.
James, Nick and Ernie all having a bash at needle gunning the repaired 21″ cylinder to check for any more pitting/holes. Thankfully only pitting was found.
Ross and Charlie assembled the new welding screens.
I gave one of Esso barrel plates a second coat on the red text, the other one was done by Ross on Sunday. These will get a coat of varnish before fitting to a tank.
A damaged 15″ cylinder was retrieved from storage in the van train. It was stripped down and assessed. All quite good, however one of the cylinder lugs has broken. This will require sending away for repair. Ross removed the release valve studs from the cylinder, one of which needed a little heat to release.
I fitted the freshly painted 3D printed builders plates to tank 3621.
The Commuted Charge panel and star were also given a second coat of yellow.
We are also trialling our own make of Overhead Warning flash plates as an alternative to signwriting them on. In order to assess how well they stand up to the good old British weather, one has been fitted to the south end of the garage building.
Mark, Tom and Oliver started cleaning the corrugated ends of the vans in the yard, in preparation for a freshen up later in the year. they look loads better for just a wash.
Tom also brought in cake for his upcoming birthday. Happy birthday Tom!
Ernie and Ross pressure tested the cleaned down 21″ cylinder finding a few small pinholes which will need to be rectified.
That about wraps things up there, join us next time where we should hopefully be mounting some Esso plates to a wagon and probably many other things!
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s update from the railways winter gala. The tank train has been up and down, with both 3606 (sans Esso plate, though more on that later…) and 1919 making their freight train debuts. Apologies to some of you as they were both facing north!
Ernie carried on with Operation Vacuum Colander, tackling the cylinder removed from 3689 with the hole in the side. Using side wall sections out of a donor cylinder, Ernie cut out the rot and replaced with the ‘new’ metal. This kept Ernie busy for most of the weekend, as more metal was put in the more holes appeared!
Daniel and Charlie started wire brushing two vacuum cylinders which have been in the garage in bits. The surface rust has been removed now ready for some primer to be applied to the appropriate areas
James helped me fix down the table top in the mess coach, finishing the preparation and spreading the glue contact adhesive on both surfaces. The Formica surface was lowered back onto the wood and then clamped and weighed down. I’m going to try and polish the Formica and the surrounding wood will get a coat of varnish too.
During the week, I collected 8 Esso plates from DEU in Derby who cut, rolled and painted them white for us. This leaves Dave and I to signwrite them. Nick and I unloaded these from my car and stored them in Madge’s box trailer out of harms way.
Dave used the good day on Saturday to get the ‘Esso Petroleum Company Limited’ wording on the west side of 3621, which finishes the lettering on that side, just details left there now.
Nick, Charlie and Oliver went to Swithland on Sunday to recover a gas box to fit to the mess coach, which was done when they got back. We’ll use the gas box to store the fuel for the new heater.
Mark and Tom gave the Conflat a wash down, and then got the needle guns out to prepare the end pockets on 3689. While they did this, Dan picked out the lettering on the Hurst Nelson builders plates.
Dave and I got set up in the Test Car, each of us tackling an Esso plate. There is some work still to do on these including a coat of varnish. Not sure if we’ll put these on 3606 or 3621 yet, but they’ll appear out in the wild soon!
Thanks for joining us, and hopefully you’ve enjoyed seeing the tanks out again at the gala. Next week, I’m sure there will be more tank related activity, but who knows! See you then.
Hello and welcome to our this week’s news from Quorn. Work continues on two of the tanks, the lowfit, two vacuum cylinders and we get the diesel heater working in the mess coach.
The power switch and circuit breaker for the heater were installed into a 3d printed panel that Ross set into the end panel in the mess area. A temporary warm air outlet was fitted to the end of the heater, and under the coach the fuel pump was fitted & plumbed up to a temporary fuel arrangement. After a little challenge bleeding the system and changing the feed pipe to a smaller diameter tube, the heater was powered up and has performed admirably over the weekend keeping the mess-area nice and warm. The next stage will be to fit the under seat ducting for the air inlet and warm air outlets, & finishing off the fuel supply arrangement.
Mark, Tom, Oliver and Daniel progressed bodyside and underframe paint removal from the Lowfit using needle guns and scrapers. Red oxide primer was then applied to the prepared areas.
After drying off the overnight rain from tank 3621, Dan and myself completed some signwriting. Dan looking after a registration plate, tare and load text; and myself doing the east side Esso Petroleum Company Limited tank barrel text.
Ernie continued with final areas of welding and cleaning up the two repaired vacuum cylinder domes. The 21″ one also receiving a coat of primer.
After applying a little heat, Nick straightened up the bent lamp bracket on tank 3689.
The mess coach table tops have been attempting to part company from the tables for some time, so Charlie and Ross set to work carefully removing the Formica panel from the worst affected table. The remains of the glue was then scraped off the table surface and the underside of the Formica with a little heat-gun help.
The overhead warning flash plate that had to be removed from one side of tank 3854 last year (to allow for the Esso text), was repaired and re-fitted in the normal position in the centre of the wagon. To do this some additional length was welded onto the plate lugs, which were then dressed before the the plate was welded into place.
Two birthday cakes were dealt with in the normal manner (being devoured very quickly). James’s cake went that quickly there was no chance of a picture, and very little of mine was left by the time this snap was taken….lol.
Thanks for reading, join us again next week, all the best; Dave.
Hello and welcome to this weeks update covering work at Rothley and also back at Quorn.
The last few days of 2025 saw the final stages of painting, lettering and varnishing of Vanfit B777728 at Rothley.
The east side solebar was black glossed by Nick and Charlie, whilst Ernie cleaned up and painted the vacuum pipe swan-necks & handbrake lever ends.
I prepared the signwriting templates and chalked up the east bodyside ready for applying the running number and wagon details.
The re-assembled vacuum cylinder was re-fitted to Palshoc Van B855568; and one of the springs was removed to be used as a pattern for making some replacement ones. In order for the van to remain movable a temporary spring was fitted in its place.
The spare axleboxes that were removed from the old wheelsets of the Palshoc chassis were cleaned and the nuts/bolts removed before the parts were put into store. Some of the nuts needed a little heat persuasion to release.
Whilst Nick varnished the west bodyside; I applied the running number and bodyside lettering to the east side of B777728; along with what will be the last use of the 2025 paint symbol.
The west side solebar Builders Plate was then chalked up and painted on, along with the vacuum release star.
Into 2026 and some of the team returned to Quorn whilst Mark, Ross and myself put the finishing touches to B777728 at Rothley.
The east bodyside and van ends were varnished.
The east side solebar Builders Plate and vacuum release star were applied.
The rest of the team at Quorn removed one of the defective leaf springs from tank 3621 which was taken to Rothley, This will be sent away with the Palshoc springs as a pattern for replacements to be made.
Tom got stuck in to picking out the Esso Owners Plates lettering and completed all 8 of the plates that will be fitted in due course to 3606, 3621, 3854 and 3689.
The plates picked out by Tom for 3621 were fitted by Nick on Sunday. Unfortunately due to the cold weather not a lot else could be done outside.
Ross made a start fitting a diesel heater to the mess coach, cutting out a floor aperture for the burner air inlet and exhaust and bolting the mounting plate and heater to the floor.
That winds up our work this week, we’ll keep looking at the forecast hoping for warmer weather next weekend so that we can progress with our projects. Thanks for reading!
Hello and welcome; this week we have been busy with the Tanks, the Lowfit, and a vacuum cylinder, in between celebrating and some festive feasting. Nick is recovering (on light duties) this week after an operation; however it didn’t stop him celebrating his Birthday with Cuthbert the Caterpillar.
Saturday, James and myself used paint removal discs to clean off the white paint from the tyres of tank 3854. A coat of black was then applied.
Charlie & Ernie meanwhile made a start making a blanking plate for the repaired 21″ vacuum cylinder so that we could pressure test the cylinder repairs. The plate was cut, the edges ground up, mounting holes marked and drilled out. A centre hole was also drilled ready for the pressure fitting.
The cylinder studs were run down with a die-nut to clean the threads and a boss was welded to the plate to take the pressure fitting.
Once the sun had raised the temperature a bit, I was able to start applying the running numbers to tank 3621.
James applied a coat of black to the Owners plates for tanks 3606 and 3621.
On Sunday, Ernie, Charlie and Ross fitted the air test gauge and pipe to the blanking plate, then the plate was bolted to the vacuum dome using an old rubber cylinder seal in the joint.
The air supply from Edward was coupled via a valve; then raising the pressure slowly to around 20psi and using some washing up liquid solution, we were able to see a couple of pin-hole leaks in the weld repair around the top of the dome. These were ground back and re-welded.
Mark, Tom, Harry and Oliver continued with the Lowfit scraping and needle gunning work started last week.
I busied myself with some solebar lettering on tank 3621.
Sunday lunchtime, and our Chefs Mark & Tom treated us all to some festive Turkey & Duck baguettes, with trimmings of course.
Followed by crackers!
After a rather extended lunch-break, work continued with some red oxide being applied to the areas cleaned up on the Lowfit.
A coupe of final jobs were attended to on tank 3606, including securing the new brake rigging split pins, removing the operating link from the redundant vacuum cylinder and securing the cylinder to prevent rotation by making and fitting bracket between the cylinder and the underframe. Once the vacuum release chords are fitted, tank 3606 will be ready for handover to the C&W Department for final inspection before entering traffic.
Join us again next week, in the meantime I’ll leave you with pics of the Tanks and Lowfit; all the best, Dave
Hello everyone, and welcome to another update from us at Quorn. Its been another wet and windy one, so no signwriting for Dave, but plenty achieved otherwise! Before we get down to business, I should plug our Instagram page for those of you that are that way inclined, it’d be greatly appreciated if you followed us over there!
Having looked at the weather forecast, we decided (after speaking with the signalman) to hand shunt the Lowfit onto the middle road to start the repairs to its vacuum train pipe. You may remember that after renewing its vacuum cylinder, the subsequent test found that the train pipe was holed under the north end headstock.
With only three clamps securing the train pipe, quick order was made of releasing the bolts, either by spanner or hot spanner and then getting the pipe supported where it could be worked on.
Even though I said that there was no signwriting for Dave, he did manage to get the vacuum release star on the solebar of 3621, however decided after that to cease, owing to the fact the drizzle was washing the chalk marks away.
Back to the pipe then: the holed end was cut off and a new stub end found. This was clamped to the good metal in the train pipe, then Charlie and Ernie welded the joint together. Once the pipe had been welded, the pipe was scraped and wire brushed then it was moved into the back of Nick’s lorry to paint.
Ernie continued the welding on the vacuum cylinder removed from the Lowfit, heating the patch and knocking it down to close the gap, then welding round the seam. There is still some work to do on this and it has been moved inside the garage to give it an opportunity to dry!
Dave made a start on a different vacuum cylinder dome recovered from the fish van body. This was removed from one of the Esso tanks, maybe 3711. There was no chance of it holding vacuum, but with a new dome, there was a good chance it would go again. Dave cut most of the old dome off the cylinder, then he and I started grinding the weld to remove the final half inch left.
Tom removed the cast owners plates from 3854, which will be replaced with the 3D printed plates by Dave. After removing the plates, Tom then applied some primer to the bare metal.
In the back of the lorry, I pressure tested the repaired pipe using compressed air as any leaks from this are easier to find than with vacuum. Some small pinholes were found in the weld joint, so the pipe was removed for re-work.
Ernie ground out the defects and re-welded the pipe, after which it was pressure tested again with no leaks present. However a leak was found in the tee off for the vacuum cylinder, so that was ground out and re-welded. Nick coated both areas in red oxide primer.
Once we had got the dome sited in the cylinder, Ernie tacked it into position and got ready to weld the outer seam, which he then did.
Mark, Oliver, Tom and Dan got started needle gunning the solebar and side panels of the Lowfit, making excellent progress.
The 3D printed plates also received a coat of primer and undercoat.
The pipe was re-fitted back to the Lowfit and the vacuum system tested. The cylinder worked perfectly, however the hoses put on for the test may have contributed to the leak off test failing. The wagon will be fully re-tested prior to release to traffic.
The Lowfit was shunted back and the opportunity taken for a skip trip in Danny after a general tidy up. Dave remains ever hopeful of the opportunity to do more signwriting on 3621, but in the meantime we’ve got plenty to do repairing vacuum cylinders and other odd jobs in between!
Hello and welcome to a damp and chilly weekend of progress at Quorn. We dismantle a very corroded vacuum brake cylinder to provide parts to save other cylinders; and make a start with the signwriting on tank 3621.
During the week I spent a day at Rothley helping the C&W team with some finishing touches to TSO E4982 which was needed for Santa Special duties over the weekend.
The weather was not kind to us on Saturday, so Harry, Charlie and myself worked in the dry overhauling vacuum brake release valves to put into stock.
Ross made a start removing the studs from the very corroded vacuum cylinder; some of which were very stubborn and needed a bit of heat to release.
Once the studs were removed the trunion sections were cut around the edges and will be cleaned up and stored as spares.
The next step was to cut off the cylinder dome, cutting from the inside using the lower edge of the dome as a guide.
Centurion ‘Loades’ demonstrating what could be an alternative use for vacuum cylinder parts !
As the day brightened up Ross cleaned up the edges of dome before this was also put into store.
The steps that we use to access the Mess Coach have suffered somewhat with rot and need some urgent repairs; in the meantime we moved the steps normally used for visitor access to Test Car 2 into place next to the mess coach.
Sunday saw more of the team on-site and despite the cold start good progress was made with the tanks.
Mark, Tom and Oliver cleaning and drying out the chassis end pockets on 3854 ready for paint; and Dan finishing off the Overhead Warning sign on 3606.
Ross took a look at the re-wiring of the big welder, however on powering-up it became clear that we need a bigger generator to provide it with enough power to work. The piston was removed from the Lowfits’ 18″ vacuum cylinder that was started last week and found to be in good order; the marking on the piston confirming that it was last attended to by the Mid Hants Railway in 2008.
With a little help from Nick aligning the template, I marked out and painted the speed rating stars on both sides of tank 3621.
Using a bit of spare 3/16″ plate, Ernie flame cut a circle big enough to use as a patch repair for the dome of the 18″ vacuum brake cylinder. Once cut, the plate was placed on an old steel car wheel, heated and given a few blows with a hammer to create a dish shape.
Nick cleaned up the top of the cylinder and the patch laid in place; Ernie and Ross then made a start welding using the smaller welder.
Dan picked out the Empty-Load changeover valve lettering on both 3606 and 3621; whilst I added the Commuted Charge Star and logo square to both sides of 3621.
Oliver, Tom and Mark did some gutter clearing on the Mess Coach and also Test Car 2. They also applied some red-oxide to the cleaned out chassis pockets on 3854.
Thanks for reading, join us again next week, all the best, Dave
Hello and welcome to the news from Quorn; this week tank 3606 gets its identity back and we make more progress with tank 3854.
We also have news that three vehicles which have been long term residents at the GCR have now passed into Quorn Wagon & Wagon custodianship. These being 20T tank wagon A6071, 22T Lowmac EO DE269001 and 20T Herring Ballast Hopper DB992447. More details of each wagon can be seen by clicking each text link above.
Dan and myself made a start preparing the pre-printed templates, measuring and marking out for the lettering on 3606. It quickly became clear that we had bit of a problem with an somewhat errantly placed OHL warning plate on one side of 3606. Measuring up all the other wagons of this type confirmed that the plate is some 12″ further to the left therefore clashing with the Esso Petroleum barrel side lettering. This may indicate that this particular tank did not originally have the full Esso Petroleum lettering (not all did). After much discussion (and cursing that we had not picked this up before we applied the paint), we decided that it would be easier to remove the plate, grind the welds flush and patch-in the paintwork. A replacement OHL warning plate will be created by signwriting further along the barrel to match the other wagons.
Dan then started the west side solebar lettering whilst I concentrated on the running numbers.
Ross, Harry, Charlie and Daniel got to work overhauling the next vacuum cylinder which will be fitted to tank 3854 in due course.
Work continued on repairs to 3854s spark guard plates.
Mark, Oliver and Tom made good progress with paint stripping on tank 3854, whilst James had a lesson in axlebox painting.
The tank end running numbers were also applied before the weather turned on us again.
The broken label clips on both sides of 3606 were replaced with serviceable spares; both being somewhat stubborn to remove due to corroded bolts.
Thanks for reading, join us again next week; all the very best, Dave
Hello everyone and welcome to this weekends update. Today’s been a bit of a foggy one for us which didn’t really let up until after lunch.
After turning 3854 in the week to allow for access, Mark, Tom, Oliver and Dan made a start on the other side of 3854, using the needle guns to bare metal the ‘belly’ of the tank barrel. The rest of the barrel will be done with the abrasive paint removal discs on the grinders, as per the other side.
James, Charlie, Dan and I started cleaning up the brake shoe hangers after which Dan followed behind and applied some black gloss.
Dan also applied white undercoat the the axle bearing end caps, handbrake levers and lamp brackets.
With assistance from James and Oliver, Nick stripped the floor from the Conflat, ready for it to be taken to the bonfire construction area.
Charlie and I repaired the motor cabling on George and got the field reversing switch wired back up to put him back into use. He was quickly placed into work moving the floor removed from the Conflat to the bonfire pile.
I showed Charlie and Dan how to adjust the brakes on the BEVs, and left Charlie to adjust the ones on George and Zsa-Zsa.
After cleaning down, Tom, Mark and Oliver followed behind where they had bare metalled with grey primer/undercoat.
On Sunday, Ernie and I looked at some more welding on the spark/splash guards from 3854
That’s everything for this week, join us next week to see us hopefully start signwriting the two tanks, and getting further with the work on 3854. Thanks for reading!
