Twyford Waterworks Industrial Railway Gala Day

Sunday June 1st (this weekend) is the nearby Twyford Waterworks Industrial Railway Gala Day. Should be interesting; apparently they have a couple of Listers & there'll be a visting O&K (time to get some diesel inspiration!), as well as various stands & stalls. Fingers crossed for some drier weather!

4 Wheel Drive Toby

The first job following Merstham was to fit the IP Engineering budget chassis 4 wheel drive conversion to the tram engine. This reminded me of technical Lego caterpillar track & spockets from my younger days, although I didn't tend to use epoxy with my Lego ;-) Anyway, it's installed and the loco seems to run more smoothly on the line. It'll be interesting to see if the pulling power has improved (especially with the extra ballast I recently added - two lumps of mild steel).

Ray's Railway

Ray (from work) has comissioned his 45mm garden line. Here's a video of his Mortimer running around the line...

Made it to Merstham!

Well, a work colleague (Ray) & I made it up to Merstham for a couple of hours on Sunday morning, and very good it was too. The weather was kind and we wandered around between the layouts and trade stalls.

The Gauge 1 layout in the main hall was particularly impressive, with a succession of impressive mainline locos pulling rakes of coaches effortlessly round the gentle curves of the layout...

16mm Narrow guage was well represented with several layouts running. The Kent groups' layout in the gym was impressive, with a nice variety of motive power...




There was coal fired live steam on the East Surrey test track...







And plenty going on outside on the 71/4" line.

Of course it was great to be able to peruse the wares of many f the suppliers to the hobby, and a I did pick up a few bits & pieces, but more on those in future posts!

Merstham Model Steam Show

This weekend is the Merstham Model Steam Show; I'm hoping to get a pass out on Sunday morning to visit!!! Should be a good chance to catch up with all that's new & pick up some bits & pieces for the line. I'll post if I make it out of the house ;-)

Otherwise not much steaming since the last post, although the odd bit of battery loco running, as the weather has been pretty decent and there's been quite a lot to do in the garden now that summer is just around the corner.

Wildlife on the line

Found this little chap on the rails this morning, down in the cutting at the terminus. I had seen him near the compost bin the other night, but he's obviously developed an interest in the railway since!
I moved him up into the flowerbed, since I wanted to remodel the far end of the terminus, as the cuttings / vegetation really make it difficult to run a loco around the loop. I've opened this out, with an extra slab at the far end, which has improved things a great deal.
My wife's uncle came round in the afternoon, and we a great steam up with all three locos in steam!

Weekend Update

This weekend was good for the railway; mostly sunny & warm. Had two extended afternoon steam-ups, running both Mortimer & Cackler (and with both steaming nicely). I also had time to do some track tweaking, re-laying the front part of the loop. This has helped sort out the last of the problems due to the spring bulb explosion! There have also been a few recent problems with track coming apart during running (particularly with running the heavier steam loco's), so a session with the pliers has helped sort this out!

I also had time to sand down the partially completed freelance coach I abandoned some time ago, so hopefully the lines' first passenger stock will be running in the near future! (a Henrietta for Toby ;-)

Outstanding jobs now include improving / aligning some of the recently laid section to the terminus (a bit of a 'hump' to even out), and reworking the end of the terminus. It's difficult to access locos in the cuttings, so this will likely be opened out & re-layed onto a slab.

Still, with warming longer summer days & evenings ahead (assuming that we didn't have the British summer this past weekend), there's plenty of time for relexed running & tinkering!