Category: Spring Bank Holiday Weekend 2021

The Moel Rhos Cane Fields

The Moel Rhos runs along a “ledge” about 6” above the lawn, but my neglectful gardening has resulted in the grass by the wall growing so tall it not only reaches the railway but dwarfs it.

I ran the Millie twice, on the first occasion I ran it back up to the steam up area after a few circuits and by extraordinary coincidence clever driving it ran out of gas right beside my steam up table. But the second time I had to send the Bolton out to rescue it.

Simon
Moel Rhos

Yr Hen Felin & Gorsaf Newydd

Since the last virtual meet-up I have been busy with lots of PVA and scenic treatments so that my original shunting puzzle now looks like this:- and the new station boards at the other end of the layout thus:- and here is the entire layout:- Trains were played this afternoon:- A passenger train had run from the mill and shunted to put the brake van on the rear Later:- A passenger train arrived whilst a diesel hauled train that had been formed during the shunting puzzle at the other end and run round at this end awaits departure:-
The diesel hauled train then ran back to the Mill but was too long for the siding so the light engine could not be released to allow shunting with massive cheating! The end of the day, all locos and stock at one end for putting away, no room to shunt anything. Phil.

Nettles

Despite the new station site still being elevated a couple of feet of the ground (which I will bring up in due course) the nettles are already above track height… There has been a serious lack of weeding in May!

No. 2 Chough had had a reversing problem but upon steaming up to investigate today it had gone away – steamed up twice, no issues at all…

Simon
Moel Rhos

Steaming in the sun

At last – some sunny warm weather! And after several weeks of wet weather with no track maintenance there was certainly a lot of line side gardening and track maintenance to do – about 3 wheelbarrow loads in fact!

During May I took a fancy to Regner’s new steam tram and bought a kit with the intention of running it on some of our Group’s 45mm lines. It went together fairly well and three steam-ups on blocks were done in the shed while the wet weather continued. The first identified that the Regner gas filler is useless. With a Ronson replacement installed, the second identified that the pre-build of the gas regulator had incorporated a scrappy bit of PTFE tape which subsequently blocked the jet. The third run was quite successful. So today it seemed a good chance to have a test run on the track, after re-gaugeing it. Steam was raised quickly and all was well for a couple of minutes – but then it ceased up solid and in the process put the gas flame out! Several further attempts had the same result. And so the engine was returned to the workshop, and the GVT Tank came out.

I’ve been doing some repair work on Sir Theodore – a new pressure gauge, replacing the rear cab spectacle plate that popped out unexpectantly a while back (and putting glazing in plus blacking out the large brass area inside), and trying out the original Accucraft regulator spindle to see if the performance might be better than the TTD one I’d fitted when I put R/C in it. All was well this time and the engine was given a mineral train to try out on the gradients. I think the response to the regulator change was better than previously so I’m hopeful this will be an overall improvement.

Mike Barton