Tag: 983393

  • 30/03/2025 – All Change

    30/03/2025 – All Change

    Hello and welcome to this week’s update. The Test Car has a new home and is prepared for the April event openings. The re-formed Mixed Goods returns to Quorn and we attend to a few repairs and maintenance items in readiness for the forthcoming Goods Experience Days.

    During the week the operations team carried out a large number of shunt movements that included extracting the Creosote tank and returning the tank train to Swithland along with a number of other wagons. The Creosote tank, being an engineers wagon, was transferred into the mixed goods formation along with the two Catfish and a vacuum braked Dogfish.

    Test Car 2 was also turned and re-positioned with the steel high ADE280364 at the buffer stop end of Road No.1. This will make the coach much more visible & accessible to visitors, and also make it much easier for us to manage visitor access when we open the coach on event days.

    The four box vans that still need some work to finish off the roof repairs were positioned in the yard and the mixed goods arrived into Quorn on Saturday morning.

    We wasted no time attending to the damaged vacuum brake pipes at both ends of the Dogfish DB993412, replacing the missing vacuum release chord and oiling up the brake rigging

    The power was connected up to the Test Car and we made a start on tidying and cleaning inside the coach. The deceleration meter mounting pad was also repaired and re-fitted to the steel high wagon.

    The vacuum brake test rig was transported down the yard and a brake test was carried out on the Dogfish in the Mixed Goods. Loose axleboxes on Mineral B550356 were also attended to and new split pins fitted.

    A cracked brake block on Catfish DB983393 was replaced. The replacement was swapped from DB983166 that’s currently handbrake only; this will be replaced in due course.

    Work continued on the chassis of tank 3606, concentrating on the end pocket areas at the south end, with more rust removal using hammer & chisel and the air needle gun. This was followed up with some carefully applied red-oxide primer.

    On Sunday it was great to see the re-formed Mixed Goods set in operation as part of the preparations and staff training for the forthcoming Goods Experience Days.

    More information about these forthcoming Goods Experience Days can be found on the GCRs website here: – Goods Experience Days

    There are also quite a few opportunities to visit the Quorn Wagon & Wagon team during April when we have Test Car 2 open to visitors at the following events:-

    – Reunification Open Weekend – 5/6 April 2025

    – Road Rail Steam – 19-21 April 2025

    – Spring Diesel Gala – 25-27 April 2025

    Find us at the south end of the station yard at Quorn, just past the turntable.

    Pop in and see us for a guided tour of this unique piece of railway history, and find our how & why British Rail tested goods wagons. Keep and eye out for our Donations Lamp outside the Test Car; your support is very much appreciated.

    For more info about these events, and more, please see the GCRs website – https://www.gcrailway.co.uk/whats-on/

    Join us next week to see what we get up to during the Reunification Open Weekend; all the best, Dave

  • 08/12/24 – Keeping Busy

    08/12/24 – Keeping Busy

    Hello and welcome to a very wet weekend update from Quorn. The Test Cars’ generator continues to be problematic; however we have completed the outstanding mechanical item on one of the Catfish.

    During the week I was asked by the Rothley C&W team if I’d help out with part of the signwriting on BG 81382 which was being finished off ready for release from Rothley and use on the Santa Special trains this weekend.
    (Photos courtesy of & copyright Jamie Swanson)

    Mark, Tom and Charlie got stick into some interior cleaning in Test Car 2.

    Whilst Ernie did some repairs to some of Test Car 2’s 1980s vintage wooden chairs.

    Under Catfish DB983393, the initial thought was to heat up the area surrounding the two sheared bolts and use an easy-out extractor to remove them, however the bolts would not budge. So Ross and myself moved on to plan-B and drilled out the two bolts and tapped the holes for M12, then secured the saddle back into place.

    With a fully charged starter battery connected to Test Car 2’s generator we were hopeful to get it running again. After quite a few attempts it finally fired up, however it was not running very smoothly at all and didn’t sound quite right either. We tweaked the fuel pump adjustment and tried again, but it ran much the same.
    Our conclusion after all the replacement parts and checks we have done is that the problems could lay deeper in the engine; so we have decided the next step is to check the state of things in and under the cylinder head. The first task being to remove the exhaust.

    With the exhaust manifold removed it became clear that that this engine needs some further TLC. The exhaust ports being very badly coked up.

    We continued to remove parts in readiness for releasing the cylinder head.

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

  • 20/10/24 – Keeping ourselves busy

    20/10/24 – Keeping ourselves busy

    Hi everyone, welcome to this weeks update from the team at Quorn. The weather has hampered our plans to get some paint on the Catfish; however we’ve kept ourselves busy.
    Some stock positioning shunting too place whilst we continued with progress on the LMS brake van, some more items on the to-do-list and Test Car 2s generator.

    During the week Tom, Dan and Nick continued with painting on the LMS Brake Van M730562 at Rothley, handrails, lamp brackets, swan necks and underframe were progressed. A new step board was also made and fitted.

    The new paint arrived ready for the two Catfish wagons, however the inclement Saturday morning weather meant that wagons were too wet for us to apply any paint, so Oliver made sure it was stored away safe.

    The old crank pulley oil seal was removed from the timing cover from Test Car 2s generator; the cover was then de-greased and pressure washed.

    A new seal was then fitted using a suitably sized drift and our makeshift press with a final knock-into position with a hammer.

    Hector’s cab parts were loaded onto one of the box vans for safe keeping and we sorted out some spare bolts in readiness for box van repairs before the Class 37, 37714 arrived to manage various shunt moves at Quorn for stock positioning.

    Ross and myself continued with cleaning up the timing cover mating surfaces on Test Car 2s generator, and repairs to some of the generator wiring.

    Richard resurrected some old skills in repairing and servicing two of Nick’s 1970s record players.

    Ernie and Nick installed a lighting power supply cable across to the Fish Van on the dock; this will help us as the nights draw-in.

    Mark, Tom, Oliver Dan and Nick managed to a bit of house keeping in the short spell between the Sunday morning rain and the lunchtime rain. The rotten sleepers were moved from the dock to the wood pile for the bonfire.

    A general tidy up of the area on the dock and some gardening will help improve the access for vehicles to the dock.

    Thanks for reading, join us again next week.

  • 29/09/24 – A second Catfish coated

    Hello everyone and thanks for joining us for this week’s update from Quorn. The Catfish have been the sole focus of attentions, with DB983393 having is priming finished and DB993560 getting primer applied.

    Ernie started grinding back the welding I’d done on the outside of the hopper while I continued doing the last bit of welding on the big panel, up each side of the patch and a small amount on the inside of the hopper.

    The platform that was cleaned down last week had primer applied by Nick, who then moved onto the other hopper. The dock side of the hopper bar the w-irons got a coat of primer. He then started to scrape the more restrictive areas of the hopper that haven’t been finished, joined by Oliver who used the needle gun to clean down the south end walkway.

    Dan and Oliver made a start on cleaning the inside of the hopper with the pressure washer, more on this in future weeks.

    Mark joined Ernie on the grinder, and tidied up the welds on the big panel, lastly Ernie got to applying paint to the panels the have been ground back

    Nick continued applying paint around the hopper, moving round the West side. Charlie continued his mission to keep the dock tidy by cutting the grass.

    Thanks for joining us for this week’s update. Join us next week where is will likely be the last bit of cleaning and priming on the hopper.