Garden Railway Forum

A friend of mine recently asked if I’d be interested in sorting out a lady Anne he’d bough s/h a while back and never got round to doing anything with. I love a project so without much hesitation said yes. I met him down the local model engineering club (keeping 2m distance obviously) and was presented with a toolbox full of bits:
On closer inspection there was a well used lady Anne chassis and pretty ropey body, both seemingly randomly brush painted brown in places, I assume an attempt at weathering...
Along with a brand new body kit and this, which appears to be a wild rose a fair way along the build:
Should be fun!

First job was to test the chassis on air, which I did and it ran surprisingly well

[video] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ARfXmgytdGg[/video]

After that I set about piecing it together for a steam test:
Couldn’t resist test fitting the body as well...
Had to steal a few of the manual fitting left over from my own rc one but managed to get it together and steamed. It ran nicely but the pressure gauge has given up the ghost and there’s a few minor niggles that want sorting.

[video] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_P-0pzx22pY[/video]

[video] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KI_5yNtqOcw[/video]

Also made a start on the new body:



Just waiting for the owner to source some bits now then can hopefully get properly stuck in! Apologies for the big first post, tend to get stuck into a project before even thinking about putting it on here!

Seems to run quite well. How odd. I wonder how it came to look like that?

I’d be interested to know it’s full story, it looks to be kit built as far as I can tell. I’m currently trying to iron out a few niggles in the chassis before stripping it part way to tidy it up. Have made a start on the new body in the meantime:

Garethh wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:12 pm... but the pressure gauge has given up the ghost ...

Check for a blocked siphon pipe on the boiler.

TonyW wrote: ↑Tue Jun 09, 2020 11:51 am

Garethh wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:12 pm... but the pressure gauge has given up the ghost ...

Check for a blocked siphon pipe on the boiler.

Thanks for the advice tony, it appears to be clear as I blasted it through with the compressor, but the boiler is a bit limescaled up so it’ll get a descaling when it’s apart just in case.

Looking great.

After just reading for years I finally had a reason to register.
What are you using as descaler? For my 5" gauge steel boilers I normaly usw strong vinegar and hot water.

I was planning to do exactly that!

Scrat wrote: ↑Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:02 pm For my 5" gauge steel boilers I normaly usw strong vinegar and hot water.

I see we have another 5" gauger, welcome!

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:54 pm

Scrat wrote: ↑Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:02 pm For my 5" gauge steel boilers I normaly usw strong vinegar and hot water.

I see we have another 5" gauger, welcome!

As it happens I can’t seem to get thoughts of a 7 1/4 battery loco out of my head...

we should start a new thread in order to leave this one intact.

Found a bit of time to strip the dodgy paint from the smokebox, unfortunately all the fittings are missing, fingers crossed the owner can locate them!

Progress has been a bit slow on this, not had much free time of late, gradually getting there though

Nice work!

I notice there was the best part of two bodies in the toolbox in the first photo. You wouldn't happen to have a spare cab floor amongst the bits would you?

Busy cab floor do you mean the whole footplate assembly?

Finally got round to stripping a repainting the frames, they got taken back to bare metal, etch primed, a few coats of grey primer followed by matt black enamel. Decided to chemical blacken rather than paint the bolts and stretcher that will be visible as I figure paint will only interfere with the mating surfaces.

Coming up nicely, that. It's always a relief when you finally reach the end of stripping away the oil and ratty paint. Better yet when freshly-painted bits go back together.

Thanks Aaron, I particularly hate the paint stripping bit! Bit more progress today, rolling chassis is back together and couldn’t resist a quick test fit of the body and smoke box to get and idea of what it’ll look like when I’m finished.

Been a while but finally finished putting this back together, had some boiler issues that needed attending too...
Just coal loads and rc gear left to do

That looks very smart, Gareth.