Pit to Port Preservation

13/05/2025

Blue 08 ✅
Blue CDA ✅
Blue sky ✅

Both smelling of fresh paint, 08444 hauls 375063 out of the workshops at Bodmin General for a little sojourn in the sidings with its fellow classmates whilst the railway holds its spring steam gala this weekend. Work will continue once it returns to the workshop.

Come on down to the Bodmin Railway this Friday, Saturday & Sunday and see an impressive line up of steam locomotives working hard up the lines’ steep gradients, the weather is looking good, too!

28/04/2025

375063 update:

Well the sun has certainly been shining over Cornwall today, and we’ve been making the most of it getting more work done to 375063 at the Bodmin Railway. Tasks today have mainly centred around painting the chassis and solebar, with some of the more intricate parts of the wagon receiving a fresh coat of paint as well. We have also removed more clay (yes, more!) from around the gutter areas as we’ve found the wagon has been ‘self weathering’ in the rain! Still plenty more to do but hopefully we will be in a position to begin fitting new vinyls in the very near future!

26/04/2025

Chris, one of the dedicated and hard working staff at the Bodmin Railway has captured this fantastic shot of 08444 (freshly outshopped in BR Blue) alongside OOV B743635 & CDA 375063 basking in the spring sunshine at Bodmin General, whilst more work is carried out today. Keep an eye out for more updates later on!

📸©️Chris Hatton

21/04/2025

Come on down to the Bodmin Railway today where you can have the opportunity to ride in uniquely converted OOV B743635 which has built in seating meaning you can ride in an actual China Clay wagon! Ex-Port of Par locomotive ‘Judy’ will be doing the honours with 5552 on the main service set. What better way to spend Easter Monday!

Judy running rides today in our China Clay Wagon fitted with seats while 5552 arrives with the first train back from Boscarne Junction

12/04/2025

Some more fantastic shots courtesy of Jon Hird of today’s Driver Experience course featuring 47306 & 6 of the 8 resident CDA’s at the Bodmin Railway. What a magnificent sight they are, out and about in the Cornish countryside, even if the weather didn’t play ball!

Work still continues on 375063 in the workshops at Bodmin, and hopefully we will be in a position to provide further updates over the next couple of weeks, so please stay tuned for now!

📸©️Jon Hird

12/04/2025

Today, 6 of the 8 CDA’s are out and about at the Bodmin Railway on a Driver Experience course! They certainly do look the part behind resident Class 47, no. 47306 ‘The Sapper’ as captured here by Jon Hird descending the bank at Charlie’s Gate and at Dreason on the approach to Bodmin Parkway.

The railway are also running their Class 121 ‘Bubble Car’ no. 121020 today - why not come along for a ride and see the CDA’s for yourself?

📸©️Jon Hird

07/04/2025

Another productive day working on 375063 in the beautiful Cornish spring sunshine.

Tasks today have included:

• Painting the cradle with ECC Blue undercoat.
• Painting more of the chassis in black.
• Removal of the old ‘new’ style OHLE stickers and replacing them with new ‘old’ style stickers (if that makes sense! 😂)
• Applying new CDA decals to both sides of the hopper.

Lots more left to do before the wagon is ready to ride the rails once more. If you fancy getting involved then we’d love to hear from you. We’re only a small group of volunteers and as you can imagine, overhauling 8 CDA is a huge undertaking! You don’t need to be technically minded (though knowledge and competency on railway vehicles, power tool usage etc is definitely helpful), as picking up the paintbrush is just as useful, and help and guidance will always be provided. Membership to the Bodmin Railway Heritage Trust and National Wagon Preservation Group is required (for insurance purposes, but gets you great perks!) Please get in touch with the group for more information.

04/04/2025

Apologies for the lack of updates here recently folks - being a small team of volunteers means unfortunately work, study and life in general has gotten in the way! However today work has commenced apace with Mike doing more sterling work, this time with the paint brush and not the needle gun or grinder!

Here we see more ECC blue being applied to the cradle, with the frames continuing to see more black applied. I think you’ll agree it’s really starting to come together. Keep an eye out over the next couple of days for further updates.

Lastly, thank you so much to everyone who donated to, and shared our fundraiser appeal. We’ve raised £500 which will be put straight back into materials needed for the overhaul of the wagons. If anyone else wishes to donate or help in any way please get in touch.

20/03/2025

For this we’re posting a photo that doesn’t contain CDA’s!

In this undated photo, but unmistakably from the 1970’s, we see D1036 ‘Western Emperor’ easing past Coulson Park with a loaded rake of OOV Clay Hoods bound for Carne Point.

There’s just over a week left on our fundraiser - with lots of scheduled work coming up on the wagon fleet now we’re entering longer days and warmer weather we’d appreciate now, more than ever, if our followers would share or donate to our appeal. A little bit certainly goes a long way in railway preservation. You can find the link here: https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/9cCjcp4xPc

Keep an eye out for more updates on the restoration process of CDA 375063 in the coming days!

📸©️ Roger Winnen

13/03/2025

For this we’re scaling things down a bit.

Here we see 09019, when it was one of the St Blazey allocated shunters, shunting a small rake of CDA wagons within the confines of the yard on a sunny winters day on the 23.01.2005.

Happily, 09019 survived into preservation, currently residing at the West Somerset Railway, albeit no longer in its attractive ‘Mainline’ livery.

Our Pit to Port fundraiser is still live! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far to our cause to preserve and maintain Cornwall’s China Clay history. To find out more about the fundraiser, or to donate any amount, please see the link here;

https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/9cCjcp4xPc

📸©️Jon Hird

07/03/2025

Seeings as there wasn’t a yesterday, how about a to make up for it!

Here we see Transrail-liveried 37673 at Lostwithiel heading West after running-round its train of empty CDA’s in the goods loop, following a visit to Fowey Docks on the 10th September 1997.

Donate to our ongoing fundraiser here;

https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/9cCjcp4xPc

Every penny counts! Even if you can’t donate, please consider sharing our posts to get the word of our voluntary cause out there, thank you!

📸©️Jacob Hampson