LRJA No1 is back
Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 5:14 pm
At age 15 I bought my first loco, an SLK1. It was £50 and earned with the proceeds of my first summer job, cleanup in a roadside cafe at £1 an hour, so in terms of earning power cost me more in sweat than a Wrekin would today. For seven years "she" was my one and only loco and ran everywhere, until Dark Horse arrived in 1993 and she became reserve engine and was eventually sidelined for an overhaul and rebuilt. The round tuit never arrived, and she spent many years in bits gathering dust in a biscuit tin on the workshop shelf, until finally DLRDan offered to do the job (and a repaint too). Off went the bits to Blyth, and they came back last month looking like this.
Well, after that the only thing to do was fill 'er up and set fire to her. Steaming mamods is a bit like riding a bicycle- you never forget where everything goes and what it does. Of course, if it was 20 years since you last rode and it's a very different engine with bits it didn't have before (like a straight-thru lubricator) or bits that aren't quite where your fingers expect to find them (like the regulator on the new boiler) it's a bit more challenging, but she helpfully reminded me where the too-hot-to-touch bits were and soon the safety valve was hissing, and it was train time.
This is a historic moment for the LRJA, because the last time this loco ran I hadn't built this railway and didn't even live in this house, so this is No1's first journey on the Horncastle branch. A picked out a short train, but still longer than typical mamod fare given that I mostly use heavy wooden brandbright wagons with all steel running gear. I needn't have worried, as she strolled away with it under perfect control.
After several topups and a nice long run the line was starting to get busy as guests lit up (Dan had come for one of our regular steamups and brought back Andrew Raymond at the same time) so I shunted the train into the transfer sidings at Wragby, because it's always satisfying to complete a journey under power rather than running out of something on the main line, and took one more picture before blowing out the fire and resuming hosting duties.
Conclusion: Dan's work has not met my expectations, but vastly exceeded them. Both in appearance and performance, the loco is transformed. I was expecting something temperamental to play with occasionally when feeling nostalgic, but instead got a loco thoroughly deserving of a slot on the regular running roster.
Well, after that the only thing to do was fill 'er up and set fire to her. Steaming mamods is a bit like riding a bicycle- you never forget where everything goes and what it does. Of course, if it was 20 years since you last rode and it's a very different engine with bits it didn't have before (like a straight-thru lubricator) or bits that aren't quite where your fingers expect to find them (like the regulator on the new boiler) it's a bit more challenging, but she helpfully reminded me where the too-hot-to-touch bits were and soon the safety valve was hissing, and it was train time.
This is a historic moment for the LRJA, because the last time this loco ran I hadn't built this railway and didn't even live in this house, so this is No1's first journey on the Horncastle branch. A picked out a short train, but still longer than typical mamod fare given that I mostly use heavy wooden brandbright wagons with all steel running gear. I needn't have worried, as she strolled away with it under perfect control.
After several topups and a nice long run the line was starting to get busy as guests lit up (Dan had come for one of our regular steamups and brought back Andrew Raymond at the same time) so I shunted the train into the transfer sidings at Wragby, because it's always satisfying to complete a journey under power rather than running out of something on the main line, and took one more picture before blowing out the fire and resuming hosting duties.
Conclusion: Dan's work has not met my expectations, but vastly exceeded them. Both in appearance and performance, the loco is transformed. I was expecting something temperamental to play with occasionally when feeling nostalgic, but instead got a loco thoroughly deserving of a slot on the regular running roster.
