On the Dutch "grootspoorforum" one of my collegue steamers bought it on a jumble and tried to get it a bit in shape. It was in a bit sorry state, but as known with roundhouses, a sorry state is not the end of the road mostly.
And it had a 70s radiocontrol in it, wheelhubs where damaged and some other bits and pieces where gone.
He then rebuilt the chassis and repainted the body. Of course he got it running, but it worked somewhat erratic and he didn't want to spend the time to get that sorted, because of a lot of other projects. So I bought the locomotive to work it out and finish the rebuild.
This was the locomotive as I bought it. It looks a lot better as in the beginning, but it didn't run well. It missed a cylinderhead screw and both cylinders where loose. Right side forward was halfway and left side forward completely down, so the directionarm needed sorting. When this was sorted, de right cylindervalve needed some adjustment to switch it over earlier in forward "gear". Eventually I got it running smoothly.
This is a picture of the original locomotive:
The windows on the model where much too small and the back needed a lot more detail + underframe. I like the black colour more than the green, that's why I kept it black. This was the "Bielefeld" with additional detail:


And eventually after repainting:


I guess the loco is about 30 years old, may be more. But it runs great with plenty of steam to spare, even in winter. It has a chuffer, so it makes noise as well, and I like the "dancing" of the locomotive when it is working a heavy train.
It is manual control, since I don't have a big layout and I like a steam locomotive to be the way they where meant to be, without electronics.. The regulator can be operated without opening the cab and directional control is accessable through a window.









