Tag: ADB975397

  • 20/07/25 – Making the most of the wet weather

    20/07/25 – Making the most of the wet weather

    Hello everyone and welcome to another update from Quorn. We’re eager to get 1919 finished, but this weekend the wet weather has diverted us to other things.

    Dave popped in on Friday to get some more paint on 1919, concentrating on the yellow aspects, so the yellow Private Owner symbols and the BP on the east side of the barrel. He also got some red out and put a first coat on the air brake pipe cocks and pipe ends.

    With the weather being as it was, we opted to do inside jobs. Dave started off picking out the letter on the Shell-Mex Ltd plates he’s 3D printed for 1919.

    We’d recently picked up a few tyre profile gauges, which were well coat in surface rust and dirt, so Ernie very gently cleaned that up and applied a coat of oil to prevent them rusting again.

    Once there was a gap in the weather, Ernie got the grinder out to prepare the ladder brackets he’d made and slotted during the week. These have now been chamfered ready to weld to the chassis.

    Dave and I went into the Test Car and starting sorting though the test area, and removing some of the less period appropriate signage. This led to the scouring pads coming out and some of the more tired wood work got scraped and scuffed, and whatever fittings that could be removed where.

    Ernie cleaned a few more gauges, and also checked through the oil cans, throwing away those that don’t work and filling up those that do.

    I went into the Test Car and applied varnish to the slip end paneling, the desk drawers and to the toilet door and door frame which looked a whole lot better for a coat of varnish.

    Nick put up more shelving up in the fish van, which has made the fish van much tidier and will allow us to sort out some of the our collected stuff into more suitable locations.

    Using one of the new gauges, I measured the flange height and thicknesses on the two Esso tanks, plus two spares sat by the tool van.

    Thanks for reading this week’s update. Next week there won’t be an update, so join us again in two weeks to find out what we’ve been up to.

  • 13/07/2025 – Bumper Summer Update

    13/07/2025 – Bumper Summer Update

    Welcome to two-weeks worth of summer news from the team at Quorn. We have carried out axlebox maintenance on much of the fleet, supported the Rail200 event and continued to progress the tank wagon restorations.

    All wagons in the mixed goods rake and some in the van train were given their annual axlebox maintenance which involves checking for water ingress and removing any signs of water or emulsified oil, journal inspection, pad condition check, cleaning the pads, re-oiling the pads and topping up the reservoir with fresh oil. The axleboxes are then re-assembled with new split pins as necessary.

    Tom, Oliver, Dan, Harry and Charlie all learning the process from Nick and doing much of the work on 35 wagons.

    One of the spare corrugated wagon end sections was removed from it’s storage in B721587 and transported to Rothley where it will be used to affect repairs on the badly corroded end of Shock High Wagon B724570.

    The brake gear on Brake Van B954268 was oiled up.

    The bubbling paintwork on a few planks on the west side of Brake Van B954268 was sanded by Mark, Tom, Oliver & Dan, and the affected planks treated with undercoat.

    I continued with the lettering on the west side of tank 1919.

    Then applied the operational speed rating stars. The two stars for wagons, authorised to run at higher speeds, i.e. above 35 miles/h, but not allowed to run in passenger trains.

    Charlie helped fit the wagon information display boards to the mixed good rake in Quorn Yard for the Rail200 weekend.

    We also welcomed visitors including some good friends into the Test Car during the weekend.

    During the week, some more axleboxes in the van train were attended to by Nick, Tom and Oliver.

    Onto to Saturday where Nick Charlie and Daniel finished off the axle boxes on the van train while trying to stay in the shade

    Dave and I continued the push on with the sign writing on 1919, with Dave getting a good start on marking out in the cooler temperatures. I made a start with the fast traffic stars.

    Ernie carried on with preparing the ladder brackets on 3606, ready for them to be welded back together in preparation for two new ladders.

    Both Charlie and Ernie finished the day applying undercoat to the storage container on the dock.

    Dave and I started off Sunday by marking out the logo squares on the barrel on the West side of the tank, starting by measuring heights and central positions, then getting the template onto the wagon to trace its outline before applying masking tape.

    This was followed by a quick scuff, readying the square for undercoating by Ernie.

    While Ernie did this, Dave and I finished off the signwriting on the East side, with Dave finishing of the ‘repairs’ panel, and me the solebar lettering.

    Ernie carried on with the white undercoat, undercoating the lamp brackets. Followed up with a dose of gloss black on the drawhooks, air pipe stowage brackets and steps.

    I made a start on one of the end numbers, choosing the nice easy flat plate!

    Dave painted all four logo squares in their respective colours; two white and two yellow. He also took the time to wipe off the chalk outline from the text with a damp cloth.

    Nick used the gloss black to paint the discharge pipework and the replica Shell-Mex owner’s plates, ready to go on the wagon. The plates were drilled prior to being painted with the black paint.

    Dave picked out the east side cast plates while Ernie floated around with the white gloss paint, painting the now dry lamp brackets, the foot valve levers and vacuum swan-necks.

    Nick repaired an axlebox pad where the spring had failed, utilising a spring found on a life expired pad. This will re-enter stock after a bit of a soak.

    That wraps up this update, thank you for reading. Next week will be more work on 1919, which is tantalisingly close to be completed, with one barrel number still to do plus the large Shell and BP logos. Join us then, in the hopefully cooler weather!

  • 27/04/2025 – A weekend for the Diesels

    27/04/2025 – A weekend for the Diesels

    Hello and welcome to a Diesel Gala weekend update from the team at Quorn. We’ve again had Test Car 2 open to visitors, and we’re pleased to announce the arrival of our NEW updated Pocket Stockbooks which give full details of all the vehicles in our fleet.

    We took the opportunity to have our sales stand out alongside the booking-on point for the Drive a Shunter event that proved very popular.

    Although the shunter movements restricted our working area, we did manage to progress work on the splash guards from 3621. The badly corroded areas of the last splash guard were ground out by Ross and fresh plate welded in.

    New mounting holes were drilled in all four splash guards, then a coat of red-oxide primer applied. Three were then re-fitted to tank 3621.

    A new lawnmower was acquired from the car-boot sale that will help keep our working areas of the yard tidy through the summer. Charlie soon got it working, then stripped it down to clean up and paint; whilst Ernie modified an old fire extinguisher to make a moneybox to go on the sales stand.

    The Test Car was steadily busy throughout the weekend. Thank you to all the many interested visitors who took time to listen to my ramblings and find out about the history of the coach and what it was used for by British Rail.

    We made progress with getting some old test equipment working, including the tachometer and distance 1/8 mile pulse output, the accelerometer (that was used for measuring wagon stability) and the thermal paper chart recorder.

    A fabulous weekend for the diesels thundering past the Test Car too.

    Join us again next week when we’ll be fully focussed on the wagons.

    I’ll leave you with another diesel….

    All the best, Dave

  • 21/04/25 – Easter’s Greetings!

    21/04/25 – Easter’s Greetings!

    Hello everyone, and welcome to this weekends update. The railway has hosted its Road Rail Steam event over this extended weekend, and as one of the attractions Test Car 2 has been open to the public, however, we have been able to continue progress on the two Esso tanks.

    On Good Friday (though we prefer Goods Friday) both the vans and the mixed goods were out and about the railway which was a pleasant sight to see. Dave, Nick and I were on site to make the final preparations to opening the Test Car.

    A person wearing an orange safety vest is crouched down, using a marker to make notes on a piece of paper attached to a wooden step next to a railway carriage.

    On Saturday, the main event was the Test Car opening, with Ernie and Dave mainly taking care of proceedings. Nick, Tom, Oliver and I took a look at repairing/and painting some of the splash guards from 3621 and 3606. Those from 3606 only needed a scrape and wire brush before receiving some primer. Nick, Tom and Oliver also applied primer to both chassis where these splash guards mount. Additionally the areas covered up by the tank supports also got a coat of primer.

    Three of the four splash guards from 3621 need a more in depth repair, which I tackled. I cut out the rotten sections, then used a scribe to draw around the cut out on some new metal to make my new piece. After they were ground up, I welded them into place on the top and bottom face to complete the repairs on two of the three plates. I ran out of time for the third, so this will be done another day. Once completed and cooled, they joined the queue to be painted.

    Dave and I covered Test Car proceedings on Sunday, with Ernie joining us again today, ably running the sales stand. Thanks to everyone who visited, and to those who donated or bought something from us, every bit of goes back into the wagon fleet and the continued restoration of Test Car 2.

    The weather on Monday was a bit poor for wagon work, but the team set into refurbishing some vacuum release valves, and fitted another vice to the work bench in the GUV. At the end of the day the hose was coiled back up after being used to fill the reserves for Colin McAndrew, and other tidying up was done ready for next weekend, where the Test Car will be open again, this time for the Spring Diesel Gala.

    Thanks for reading and join us again next week to see what else happens!

  • 06/04/25 – Reunification Weekend

    06/04/25 – Reunification Weekend

    Hello everyone, and welcome to another update from Quorn. This weekend has been the railway’s Re-unification Open Weekend, so we’ve welcomed visitors into the Test Car and around a small area of the yard. Nick and the team have also finished off de-scaling the last few pockets on both 3606 and 3621, and all bar two have been painted in black top coat.

    Ernie, Dan and I welcomed visitors into the Test Car to explain and share its unique position in UK railway history. I also used some of the quiet periods to investigate some of the speedometers around the coach to see if they can be connected to the instrumentation in the coach as they were.

    Harry, Dan and Nick continued the descaling, and continued priming the pockets and bays on the two Esso tank wagons. We’re now at the point where we’ve got the the last of these so we can now move to prepping the rest of the wagons.

    On Sunday, Oliver, Tom, Mark, Charlie and Nick continued applying both primer and black paint to the wagons.

    That wraps up this update, as a reminder the Test Car with be open for two more weekends in April:

    – 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, through the gate 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/

    Thanks for reading! All the best, Ross

  • 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

  • 22/12/24 – New projects…

    22/12/24 – New projects…

    Hello, and welcome to another update from Quorn. Now that the Catfish have departed Quorn destined for the Mixed Freight set, we’ve received the two TTAs, and the TEA has been brought down from the top of the yard. We’ll be looking at vacuum through piping these over the coming weeks and months. We’ve also been preparing for a short spell at Rothley to give the roofs of four of the vans some attention.

    First off, the team set about locating our 21″ vacuum cylinder spares, which were spread across a few locations. During this, the yard area was tidied up to release a complete (but not very well cylinder) from inside the Volvo’s bucket.

    This cylinder was removed from 3711 when it arrived, for obvious reasons. Now we are restoring a handful of engineer’s vehicles, which usually all have a 21″ cylinder, we felt that we’d need to check the condition of all available parts, which includes that cylinder…

    With a lot of brute force and occasional ignorance but without heat (surprisingly), the cylinder was dismantled. It remains to be seen if this cylinder will resurrect, but we can only try. Plus it gives us a chance to try soda blasting it!

    Dave removed the cylinder head from the de greaser and gave it a rinse off with the pressure washer. This was left to dry out in the heated mess coach. We’ll begin to assess the rest of the parts as time and other projects allow.

    As the light was falling, Dave and I took a brief look at the through pipe route for the three green tanks, the two TTAs having a well defined route in a bit of a contrast to the TEA.

    All that leaves us to say is Merry Christmas from us. We’ll have another update for you before the New Year with a bit of a wrap up and to cover what we’ve done over the Christmas and New Year period, do join us then!

  • 15/12/24 – A Lowfit at last!

    15/12/24 – A Lowfit at last!

    Hello all and welcome to this week’s update; after many years waiting we finally welcome the arrival of our Lowfit wagon into the fleet.

    Lowfit B452718 was built at Shildon in 1957 in Lot No.2729, to Diagram 1/002.
    It was last used on the main network at Basingstoke as an internal user wagon numbered 083473 and entered preservation in 2007 at the Mid Hants Railway.  The wagon arrived at Quorn during the week loaded with a D-type open container that had been constructed during preservation. Although the floor of the container looked quite rotten in places, our initial thoughts were to try and lift the container off the wagon in readiness for some necessary underframe and floor repairs.

    The Volvo was positioned and we attached some straps to the lifting eyes; gently raising the forks however pulled two of the lifting eyes straight out of the framework; it was somewhat more rotten than we had realised.

    So onto plan B; we decided to dismantle the container in situ on the wagon. Whilst the floor and side framework was rotten and not saveable, the side panels, corner framework and doors were quite solid. With most of the team on-site on Saturday things happened quite quickly, the doors were removed, end panels unbolted from the sides and the parts lifted from the wagon onto the Volvo forks for moving to storage.

    The remainder of the rotten framework was swept off the wagon and disposed of with the help of Hector and his trailer.

    The south east corner door frame of the Lowfit, catch pin and loop had taken a bash at some point in its life.  Ernie got out the gas bottles and heated up the bent loop which was straightened with Nick’s favourite item from his toolbox. Once cooled the area was treated with re-oxide primer.

    With most of the team on-site Mark treated us to some fabulous turkey & duck Christmas baguettes for lunch, thanks Mark and the chefs helpers.

    Further progress was also made on Test Car 2s generator; Ross and myself drained the coolant out of the engine, removed the rocker shaft, the cylinder head, and finally got to the bottom of the poor starting and lumpy running. The cylinder head gasket had totally failed between cylinders 1 and 2.

    The cylinder head studs were removed from the block and surfaces cleaned, cylinder bores cleaned & hoovered out, checked for condition and the engine set to No.1  piston at TDC.

    On Sunday myself and Ross dismantled the cylinder head removing the cam followers and valves; the large pillar drill made an excellent valve spring compressor.

    The cylinder head was then soaked in a bath of warm degreaser solution and as much of the gunk removed as possible. Further cleaning up is planned for next week.

    The repaired corner on the Lowfit was given a coat of gloss Bauxite.

    The two Catfish wagons are planned to leave Quorn next week, in readiness we completed a vacuum brake test on both wagons, finding a slightly suspect vacuum cylinder branch pipe on DB983393 which was duly replaced.

    Thanks for reading, join us again next week, 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

  • 01/12/24 – Wash and brush up

    01/12/24 – Wash and brush up

    Hello everyone, and welcome to another update from Quorn. We’ve been able to progress a few jobs this week, with mechanical work culminating on the Catfish, the GUV has had another coat of paint and the coaches have been cleaned.

    Continuing the progress on the GUV, the last few patches of GUV were cleared back to bare metal, then sanded and primed. Dan, Ernie and Tom concentrated on fixing the loose body side rubbing strips.

    Reflecting the fact that the Catfish are cosmetically finished, Nick got them ready for a vacuum test by fitting vacuum hoses. We had also made a start extracting two sheared bolts in the hopper door on DB983393, which need to be extracted to refit one of the door mounting saddles.

    I continued looking at the generator and replaced the starter solenoid and double checked the timing, hoping I’d find the cause of it not running, sadly at the end of Saturday this was not the case, but I put the battery on charge for the night.

    The rest of the team made good progress and got the west side of the GUV covered in undercoat, ready for a coat of maroon gloss when the weather allows.

    Sunday’s weather started on the wet side. Mark and Tom did the usual gutter clearing, after noticing the water running down the side of the two coaches. After the worst of the rain, the pressure washer was used to jet the gutters, after which the coaches were cleaned using a bit of snow foam. On the west side a look out was used to ensure the group were away from the running line.

    I did a little bit more on the generator and got it running, which is a huge step given were we were with it some time ago. There is some fettling to do with the idle speed and fine tuning of the timing before we can put this back into use.We are starting to look at some improvements to the generator like an electric lift pump and maybe an alternator instead of a dynamo.

    We’ve ended the weekend with two clean coaches, a running generator and the GUV in undercoat on the west side. We’ll see what the weather brings next week, but we should are looking at completing the mechanical work on the two Catfish and hand paperwork over the Carriage & Wagon to begin their acceptance. Thanks for reading!