Tag: B724570

  • 11/10/26 – Shock Completion

    11/10/26 – Shock Completion

    This week the team at Quorn have finished the restoration of the Shoc-High and made a start on the LNER Tube wagon.

    Saturday started with Charlie finishing off lining the builders plate on the Shoc-High, and the East side paint symbol, whilst I applied the last of the bodyside stripes; quick drying undercoat first followed by gloss white.

    Nick and Thomas adjusted the brakes on the Shoc-High, where necessary removing and cleaning up linkage pins to ensure smooth and even operation; all parts of the linkage were then oiled-up.

    Charlie started up the vacuum brake rig, and with Ross’s help the brakes were successfully tested.

    Ross and Charlie then did a small maintenance job on the Volvo, adjusting the drive belts; I joined Ross to swap the distributor back to the original one on Test Car 2 which is part of the fault chasing challenge we have with the air brake system.

    Nick and Thomas progressed the sticker removal from tank 1802.

    The tank barrel end plate which had been removed previously was straightened and the number stickers removed.

    Ross and myself fitted the last six bodyside/end bolts to the Shoc-High, then painted them with Bauxite.

    Ross, Charlie and myself then got stuck into the very rotten floor removal from the LNER Tube E301588. The floor planks in these wagons are held in place by solebar top metal strip plates; the bolts attaching these were badly corroded so all had to be cut and punched out.

    By the end of Saturday afternoon the whole floor had been removed; some of this will no doubt go to help with the Bonfire on the 5th Nov; however a considerable amount fell into pieces and was just swept into a pile.

    On Sunday Ross and myself varnished the body of the Shoc-High wagon, protecting the solebar ends, then starting with the door edges, completing the bodysides then the ends.

    Charlie and myself cleared out the south end toilet in the mess coach with a view to using the sink for hand washing. A plywood shelf was cut and installed over the top of the toilet as this will not be used. At some point we will complete the plumbing from the coach’s main water tank.

    Ernie continued with his machining and assembly of the door locking bar parts for the Palshoc van.

    Nick, Mark, Tom, Oliver, Charlie and Thomas made their way down the yard to the van train to replace the rotten doors on 12T Van B763305 with those we’d prepared a few of weeks ago. The old doors were removed, some of the bolts needing a little help from the grinder.

    The door furniture parts were cleaned up then given a coat of primer.

    The new doors were trial fitted and measurements taken for fitting the door furniture.

    The door top noggin had to be adjusted slightly, and with the doors removed the apertures were routed and chiselled out to accept the door furniture parts.

    The first new door was then fitted, drilling the hinge bolt holes and bolting up.

    With the second door hung, we fitted the door locking bar so the van could be secured. The final door diagonal timbers, bolts, door furniture and door holdback catches will be a job for next weekend.

    Charlie and myself attended to a vacuum pipe clamp bolt replacement on the south end of the Shoc-High. The swan-neck is now secure.

    After our final inspection of the Shoc-High wagon we are happy to report that the restoration is essentially complete, with only a couple of missing split pins to be attended to before the wagon is released to the Carriage & Wagon department for operational acceptance inspection. We look forward to seeing the wagon in operation once it makes its way back into the mixed goods rake.

    Join us again next week, all the best, Dave

  • 27/09/26 – More Bauxite

    27/09/26 – More Bauxite

    Hello and welcome to two-weeks news from the team at Quorn. We’ve made good progress with the Shoc-high B724570, and finished off the Bauxite application to the tool van 854097.

    Last weekend the striped ends of the tool van were sanded, cleaned down and undercoated; once this was dry the gloss Bauxite was applied to these areas.

    The final door frame parts were cut for the new 12T van doors for B763305. The doors were then assembled, primed and undercoated.

    The exposed metal frame on the Palshoc was prepared and then red-oxide primed.

    Charlie looked at making a towbar for the generator, Ernie carried on with the fabrication of parts for the Palshoc door bars, and maybe we shouldn’t ask what mischievousness Hector got up to in the yard!

    During the week Tank 3689 was shunted out of the workshop at Rothley (where it had been on display during the beer festival), and coupled with the other six Esso tanks; all 7 together for the first time.

    This weekend we have continued with the gloss Bauxite application to the inner ends and door areas of the Shoc-high.

    The outer ends were marked out for the shoc stripes, which were then taped.

    Undercoat was applied which dried really quickly.

    Followed by some white gloss.

    A few areas of the inner headstock had some black applied.

    Some replacement floor planks were prepared.

    Part of the Shoc-high floor was taken up to even up the plank spacing and remove one rotten board. The replacement planks were then fitted.

    A couple of repairs were done to two donated lamps.

    A vehicle cover sheet that was previously used at Rothley had become available as it had some damaged areas so not longer fit for use on a coach. It was laid out in the yard and an assessment found that the undamaged part was enough to allow five van roof sheets to be cut from it. These were stored away safely for future use.

    Thanks for reading, join us again next week as we progress the Shoc-high wagon nearer to completion.

  • 13/09/26 – Before and After

    13/09/26 – Before and After

    Hi, this week the team at Quorn have again been busy working on many wagons; the restoration of our 7th 35T Esso tank is completed, we progress with the Shoc-High, the Tool Van, and start making some replacement van doors.

    Saturday and continuing with the work started last week on the Tool Van, Mark and Oliver got the Bauxite gloss paint out and completed all four sides of the van.

    This gives us our first before and after picture in this update.

    Tom, Ernie and Charlie took a look at the section of corroded plate-work on the Shock-High B724570, marking out and cutting the section out. A new piece of plate was then cut to suit, the mounting holes drilled and it was checked for fit.

    The plate was then trimmed as necessary for a good fit, the back red-oxide painted and bolted up; Charlie then welded the plate in-place.

    Ross and myself measured up the East side doors that need replacing on 12T Van B763305, these are the original planked doors that have seen better days. Our plan is to replace them with our tried and tested design of plywood doors, routed to represent the planked originals. Two sheets of ply were cut to size, moving our work inside the Palshoc van that was conveniently nearby to shelter out of the intermittent rain showers.

    Ross did some fitting checks with the latest version of his prototype profile measuring device, looking again on at the Salmon, Sturgeon and Lowmac wagons.

    Having made a decision to tidy up the area near the tool van we needed the use of the Volvo loader, however this failed to fire into life so needed a bit of investigation; there is an electrical gremlin somewhere and the batteries need a good charge.

    Sunday, and after grinding back the welds on the Shoc-High plate-work, a little more weld was needed to a small area. The plate was then ground neat and red-oxide applied. After this had dried, Nick applied a coat of Bauxite to the new plate and also round the East side door frame.

    This gives us our second before and after.

    Having charged the Volvo batteries overnight we managed to get the loader started and the tidying up completed, including our spare wagon wheelsets being safely stored in the Steel-High wagon that is coupled to Test Car 2.

    Charlie took a look at a loose connection with Hector’s hooter, and fixed it.

    Ross and myself took the final two Esso barrel plates that had been varnished a couple of weeks ago down to Rothley where we found tank 3689 in the yard.

    The plates were fitted to both sides of the tank; just needing a small amount of fettling to a couple of the brackets to get the bolts to line-up.

    The tank will be proudly on display at Rothley during next week’s GCR Beer, Cider & Gin Festival.

    This work completes the restoration of Esso 35T tank 3689 that arrived from Shillingstone in October 2025, and gives us our third before and after picture.

    Returning to Quorn, Ross and myself cut the backing pieces for the 12T van doors, and routed the plank representation into the two van door sheets.

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