First an update on mid-week work, Matt has been on earlies and as usual been popping in after his shift. Tuesday he completed the signwriting by adding the wagon plates and completing the East side circuit marker on the Shockhood.Â
On Wednesday the finishing touches to the underframes of both vehicles were applied, drawing a conclusion to their repaints.
Apart from the end chains for the hood, the Shochood B is ready to return to traffic. The Medfit still requires a floor, but this should be dealt with at the weekend thus returning the wagon to traffic.
Thursday / Friday and something a little different, Matt has been helping the station with a project of theirs, turning a mobile toilet into something that doesn’t look so out of place in a “1940s Goods Yard”
On to Saturday and as mentioned above a Floor for the Medfit.
The planks were cut to length
Laid the entire length of the vehicle and marked up, 35 planks in all
Once marked up Jake had the task of drilling the holes and the planks were refitted and bolted into position.
Once complete Matt returned to the “Blue Caravan” whilst Nick and Jake manufactured label clip blocks, fitted them, as well as replacing the vacuum hoses.
On to Sunday, and with it the completion of the Medfit. Jake, Nick and Ollie finished the vehicle by painting the backs of the doors and ends with black bitumastic paint.
Whilst this was taking place, I was improving the security of the GUV by fitting an additional lock to the our access door. (No pictures of this of course) Matt had intended to continue working on the “Blue Caravan” but the rain put the kibosh on that until later in the day. Instead he amused himself by making the 9 defect book holders for all the brake vans on the railway. The brake vans have recently received defect books, so the holders will be a welcome addition. Having cut and bent the platework into shape, Matt the primed them and left them to dry.
With many hands, we also put back together the 18″ vacuum cylinder taken apart during Goods Galore, fitted a new sealing ring and rolling ring. We also took a cursory glance of a cylinder taken from the Shocvan currently in the shed at Loughborough. We know this had been overhauled recently, but erred on the side of caution and took it apart to inspect it. Finding nothing amiss, this was re-assembled and place back into store, to await the arrival of it’s van.
On to Monday, and Matt had stayed quite late on on Sunday to complete the signwriting of the “Blue Caravan”, so we looked upon the fruits of his work, whilst taking the time to remove the chalk from the now dried paint.
Monday hasn’t been a very productive day, due to shunting taking place in the south yard at Quorn. With no ‘new’ wagons received from Swithland, our attention turns to our temporary base, Test Car 2. This has been moved into the dock in place of our GUV, so that we can commence a small project to smarten it up, as requested by the railway. I won’t say what the Livery is, but it will be appropriate to the vehicle, and it has carried the livery before (which narrows it down to 3 in its Test Car guise). While Nick was sorting out few bits in Loughborough to progress another Cylinder overhaul, Matt and I set everything back up including steps to vehicles and shore supplies reconnected. We also tidied the Test Car and generally tidied around our area.
As the Medfit and Shochood are ready to depart, they have been shunted ready to move to Swithland, on the south end of the middle road at Quorn.
That finishes off the update this week. Next week we are plunged into war. Let’s see what we can get up to despite it!
