March Merstham event

[bessytractor]

this Saturday I went to the Merstham steam up. I took Alderney the vertical boiler loco with me and gave that a run, much to my surprise it ran and steamed beautifully, putting up a good turn of speed with a heavy load. Second steaming the blower blocked up a bit and we struggled, but it still managed to get round the layout though it was very shy of steam, much to my irratation. While I was there I bought some bits from the various stands, and a big bag of Welsh steam coal that was going for £1

Was nice just to natter with people too. Thanks go to Andy and Simon (MTA) for the welcome cup of tea while I was shovelling coal and running around like a blue arsed fly!

Here is a set of rather s****t pictures

Alderney when I was setting up



Roundhouse Russell



Alderney and a Bertie that was doing very well



Finescale Engineering Hunslet



the new Accucraft NG15 2-8-2






coal fired Beyer Garratt



DJB Robert



Andy has a go



got a good fire going



ready to go



not one but two NG15's, with a third just behind me!



Finally, Andy Sleigh, a portrait!

[bessytractor]

they are fairly massive. They are also somewhat intolerant of greasy track.

[andysleigh]

I'm glad i cancelled my order for an NG15, the tender is too long and looks boring.

admitedly the slab tender is a bit bland, but i still like it.

couldnt a hammer make it look a bit more interesting

[taliesin001]

Glad I'm not alone in thinking that that gap is way too big, obviously due to the smaller than prototypical radius curves but i think it ruins the appearence

[andysleigh]

the tender on the real ones had to be big to hold LOTS of water to be able to runa cross the africa deserts! (i hope i spelt that right)
check out the SAR condensing tenders, they are mahoooosive.

The accucraft ng15's come with two holes on the coupling for the tender to loco. so you can have it close or not so. for different rads.


anywho
my video of  the day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7w_EqTmI6c

[taliesin001]

just been looking at old pics of these locos. The driver is usually sitting outside the cab on the swinging seat, now that would make for an interesting model! wouldn't clear many lineside objects though I wouldn't have thought