isambardme
Western Thunderer
Well, the weather forecast for yesterday had looked promising, but at the last minute it changed & rain was predicted. Unfortunately the rain, which was supposed to stop around 2pm just carried on, varying from periodic dry intervals and light showers to pretty heavy rain.
Undaunted, I was spurred on by Richard to run trains on the wet rails. The Black Five with Spoerer r/c & LNER coaches was used to test the circuit, adjust & correct a dip in the track by the loco yard & also test where recent ballasting had taken place nearby. The coaches, which had been serviced, tested & lubricated since the last running Saturday ran much more smoothly as a rake of three .
My Bowande A4 had it's first run at Richard's. Every loco has rather different running characteristics & a large garden layout like this is ideal to test it out. I don't like to see locos going too fast, especially live steam without radio control, so erred on the cautious side, mostly. I found the loco had a powerful axle pump so needed quite a lot of water diverted back to the tender to avoid flooding the boiler. Great to see an A4 running through this garden line, despite the wet weather, producing plenty of smoke & steam !
Later Jersey Lily made an appearance on the LNER coaches. She looked the part, well suited to the coaches, but proved a rather stubborn lady on the day, unwilling to perform as well as her audience would like. Perhaps she didn't like getting wet! She may have to be stripped & adjusted later...!
( I have to say drying out the wet locos & coaches last night & packing them away today when fully dry proved more time consuming than I expected, but it was well worth it.) Here's to the next time.
Steve
Undaunted, I was spurred on by Richard to run trains on the wet rails. The Black Five with Spoerer r/c & LNER coaches was used to test the circuit, adjust & correct a dip in the track by the loco yard & also test where recent ballasting had taken place nearby. The coaches, which had been serviced, tested & lubricated since the last running Saturday ran much more smoothly as a rake of three .
My Bowande A4 had it's first run at Richard's. Every loco has rather different running characteristics & a large garden layout like this is ideal to test it out. I don't like to see locos going too fast, especially live steam without radio control, so erred on the cautious side, mostly. I found the loco had a powerful axle pump so needed quite a lot of water diverted back to the tender to avoid flooding the boiler. Great to see an A4 running through this garden line, despite the wet weather, producing plenty of smoke & steam !
Later Jersey Lily made an appearance on the LNER coaches. She looked the part, well suited to the coaches, but proved a rather stubborn lady on the day, unwilling to perform as well as her audience would like. Perhaps she didn't like getting wet! She may have to be stripped & adjusted later...!
( I have to say drying out the wet locos & coaches last night & packing them away today when fully dry proved more time consuming than I expected, but it was well worth it.) Here's to the next time.
Steve