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