South West Railfreight Preservation Group

South West Railfreight Preservation Group A page dedicated to the preservation and restoration of CDA 375030, OCA 112010 and CAR B954673.

Good evening! The weather has improved ten fold so we thought today would be a good day to get back to it on the OCA and...
24/05/2026

Good evening!

The weather has improved ten fold so we thought today would be a good day to get back to it on the OCA and even the brakevan!

With the sun beating down on us we cracked on with a simple task of painting over kurust with red oxide primer and then gloss black on the chassis.

Anything more taxing would've been too much for the nearly 30° heat!

More soon.....

Some of our members attended the Swanage Railway diesel gala this weekend just passed. It was great to see so many peop...
11/05/2026

Some of our members attended the Swanage Railway diesel gala this weekend just passed.

It was great to see so many people attending and of course for us, alongside various wagons around the railway the Class 58, 58023 in a very smart Mainline livery was the star of the show! Was great to have a brief chat in the cab with a like minded individual who is also striving to preserve air braked railfreight vehicles! No doubt that our OCA, 112010, may have been carted around the country by this very locomotive.

It wont be long until we can share more progress with our own wagons.... until then.... more soon!

Dohajydh da!Whilst up at the railway yesterday we couldn't say no to an opportunity to photograph two of our projects in...
02/05/2026

Dohajydh da!

Whilst up at the railway yesterday we couldn't say no to an opportunity to photograph two of our projects in the sun on a nice little freight rake.

ZFQ "Dogfish" DB992730 which we worked on a year ago to give it a fresh new look in the striking "Dutch" livery, Plym Valleys MTA 395285, saved from Tavistock Jnc recently and our very own CDA 375030.

A slightly odd but interesting consist nonetheless!

Gorthugher da!Today we were back up at the Plym Valley Railway, good weather meant we could finally come back and revisi...
01/05/2026

Gorthugher da!

Today we were back up at the Plym Valley Railway, good weather meant we could finally come back and revisit OCA 112010.

Today's tasks were very much a rinse and repeat of sessions gone by but noteworthy nonetheless! The team tackled more of the chassis, needle gunning rust, grinding back old paint, kurust treating the bare metal and then eventually getting red oxide paint on. We revisited parts of the chassis that was left for too long from last year giving it a freshen up.

Some of the doors had been corroded over time or damaged by some bashful loaders whilst being used for engineering trains. These, today, were either cut out with the intention of replacing like for like with new box section or they were cosmetically improved upon. Hopefully once we're done you won't even notice them!

More soon....

A little surprised to find a short rake of China Clay hoods at a coal mine in Wales...... B743249 closest to the camera...
24/04/2026

A little surprised to find a short rake of China Clay hoods at a coal mine in Wales...... B743249 closest to the camera.

It wont be long until we're back at the railway working on the wagons again, weather seems to be getting better! In the ...
18/03/2026

It wont be long until we're back at the railway working on the wagons again, weather seems to be getting better!

In the meantime, here's CDA 375030 at Marsh Mills on Sunday 15th March with 13002. Whilst 375030 is looking good with the ECC blue cradle, easysheet and ECC logos there's still plenty to do like reinstating the air brakes and roof gear repair!

What do we see in the darkness back there? That's right, it's our CDA 375030 that's managed to find its way out of the y...
14/03/2026

What do we see in the darkness back there? That's right, it's our CDA 375030 that's managed to find its way out of the yard and got involved in the Plym Valley Railways first ever night shoot!

We hope everyone got some nice shots...

📸TDW

Back at the railway on a miserable wet Sunday afternoon after attending the fantastic Plymouth Model Railway Show hosted...
01/03/2026

Back at the railway on a miserable wet Sunday afternoon after attending the fantastic Plymouth Model Railway Show hosted by Plym Valley Railway.

Today we couldn't tackle anything on the exterior of brakevan B954673 due to the weather so the interior was on the hit list! The inside was a, to put it politely, interesting choice of pink and white. We've gone for a much more appropriate colour scheme for the plans we have....

More soon....

Our home base at the Plym Valley Railway opened their gates today for the unveiling of Class 43, 43063s new paint job.Ho...
08/02/2026

Our home base at the Plym Valley Railway opened their gates today for the unveiling of Class 43, 43063s new paint job.

However, one of our followers spotted something just as interesting in the yard. Our wagons!!

CDA 375030, OCA 112010 and 20T brakevan B954673. All in varying stages of restoration. Hopefully we'll see more of all them in the not too distant future.

More soon....

📸TDW

After what feels like months of rain we're back!!Today we were back with B954673, our 20T brakevan. The work we carried ...
01/02/2026

After what feels like months of rain we're back!!

Today we were back with B954673, our 20T brakevan. The work we carried out today mostly consisted of removing old, dilapidated, sodden wood.

The wood has been allowed to get into a poor condition by the previous home and with every part we removed we uncovered more gremlins. The largest removal was the supporting bottom beam which was in a bad way after just sitting in water.

The side ducketts have been removed and will be taken off site for work at a later date. Now it's just time to price up replacement timbers.

At end of play we leave the wagon with one side covered by a tarpaulin and the other with the ducketts space covered.

More soon....

Address

Marsh Mills MPD
Plymouth
PL74NW

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