Tag: 94052

Welcome to our ‘Last Hurrah’ update from the team at Quorn; this week we have finally completed the restoration work on the two Catfish wagons. We have also progressed the with the west side of the GUV.

Between 1954 and 1961 Metro-Cammell built a total of 716 Catfish ballast hopper wagons in 6 batches. Of these 16 Catfish are believed to survive in preservation, not may of which have been restored.

The last Hurrah weekend meant a busy goods train service through Quorn, it was great to see our tanks and the van train running throughout the weekend, however we didn’t get too distracted.

Dan and myself got stuck into the remaining areas of the Catfish east side signwriting.

Mark and Ernie continued with removing the stubborn crusty paintwork from the west side of the GUV.

The showers didn’t deter us either, using our Gazebo to enable continuation of the signwriting.

Sunday continued much the same, with Mark, Tom, Oliver, Charlie and Nick concentrating on the GUV.

Whilst Dan and myself completed the signwriting on the east side of both the Catfish.

I also added the 2024 paint symbol to both wagons.

Mark got tired after all the GUV work…..

And Dan quite rightly felt proud of his signwriting achievements on the Catfish.

Charlie and Oliver helped me fit the vacuum release chords to both wagons.

To celebrate the ‘Last Hurrah’ lets have a few more pics of the good trains.

Tom then carried out the final vehicle checks on the Catfish and completed our restoration completion check forms.

All that remains now is a couple of maintenance items such as vacuum hose replacements and brake gear oiling; the two Catfish will then be handed over to the C&W department for final sign-off before entering traffic.

Thanks for reading, join us again next week, all the best, Dave

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!

The big news this week,  with thanks to the locomotive department, B850498 is no longer a van body resting on a chassis it is one single 12T Boxvan.  The body and chassis were welded together in the week and unfortunately due to the weather has remained in the Loco shed awaiting return to Quorn.

With the van away we spent time cutting some felt pads for the imitation shock gear.  These are essential because the brackets are made from aluminium and the van has a steel solebar.  These materials although quite close on the galvanic scale are far enough apart to take steps to reduce corrosion.

We also took a trip to Loughborough to prepare the van sole bar for the permanent attachment of the imitation shock gear.  Both sides were scraped, rubbed down and painted in bitumen again as a measure to reduce corrosion.  We have not done the whole underframe as we usually spray the bodies first and there is a possibility of overspray.

 

 

Finally, for the theatrical van, we wrapped some more parcels as well as refreshing the wrappings over the newspapers.  This meant that for the first time since preservation our Newspaper Packing van (GUV) was used for packing newspapers.