Garden Railway Forum

And our next venue is.....

Trefrane Coal Mine - Newgale, Pembrokeshire. As used to provide finest grade coal to the Royal Household of Queen Victoria.



Saturday saw steam raised in the coal fired Jack which can now vouch for the fact that the coal gleaned from waste pile is definitely past its prime and bakes off to solid rock rather than having any calorific value. This combined with the dying motor on the blower and increasing onshore breezes meant that only 2 laps of the newly laid Trefrane Colliery Railway were managed under coal power. The wagons were then propelled with latest addition to the fleet.


Posed as by this time pressure had dropped and relighting proved beyond conditions

Darn, meant to straighten out that lamp!

Good old back up power

Trefrane Thunderbolt

quality! Didn't realise the CDR had coal firing on its books!

MINT

I hope this thread runs and runs!

isn't that steve thorpes jack? thats been in my garden a few times! makes some lovely thick smoke!

Yup looks like Steve's to me.

Yes it's Steve's - a worthy & welcome member of the Compton Down staff - and tis he that forms the other half of this lunacy, erm I mean, new slant on Garden Railways...

need I say more....

No I think lunacy is the right word

and here he is looking smart!!!!!!

Great stuff, keep it coming
On a CDR subject, I'm hoping to run my ex CDR Porter with the Jack Wheldon wagon....that's after I've managed to prise it out of Laalratty's mitts.....

Cool, I hope this thread runs and runds too, like the new loco, good colour

Fantastic stuff, I like the plot on this.

Whats next then? Live steam at the top of snowdonia? I'm asuming freefalling out of an aircraft & steaming a loco is out then?

Well, I can happily say that the top of Snowdon has seen some track laid which carried a Regner called Peter Jones by some of Dad's closest friends.... and that although not steam for obvious reasons, track up the centre aisle of a plane somewhere over the Atlantic between Heathrow & America saw 'The Compton Nymph' set the currently known speed and altitude record for a 16mm engine as run by Dad & my Uncle Don..

We will still continue though in our relatively tame way as there are more sites on the hit list.... stay tuned

Slightly jumping on the band wagon but I had a go. I restored steam to the Glyn Valley Tramway with some track and River Deben with tram skirts and a few bits of rolling stock whilst in wales. Pics and video to follow.

Mr. Bond of the DVLR wrote:Slightly jumping on the band wagon but I had a go. I restored steam to the Glyn Valley Tramway with some track and River Deben with tram skirts and a few bits of rolling stock whilst in wales. Pics and video to follow.

And as discussed offline....there were already plans afoot for us to run my GVT tram and wagons there too - but Mr Bond had a geographical advantage for getting there first. Look forward to photos

kes wrote:

Mr. Bond of the DVLR wrote:Slightly jumping on the band wagon but I had a go. I restored steam to the Glyn Valley Tramway with some track and River Deben with tram skirts and a few bits of rolling stock whilst in wales. Pics and video to follow.

And as discussed offline....there were already plans afoot for us to run my GVT tram and wagons there too - but Mr Bond had a geographical advantage for getting there first. Look forward to photos

, Look forward to piccies of both eventually

How about... running a VB loco where that De Winton (Penmaen?) is abandoned up on one of the high galleries in one or the other of the slate quarries in wildest Wales?

isn't that in the old dinorwic quarry?

kes wrote:... and that although not steam for obvious reasons, track up the centre aisle of a plane somewhere over the Atlantic between Heathrow & America saw 'The Compton Nymph' set the currently known speed and altitude record for a 16mm engine as run by Dad & my Uncle Don..

I can't think how I possibly arrived at this train of thought, but I did once ponder whether it would be possible to build a live steam locomotive that could run on the moon. Perhaps you could start with a gas-fired model and add extra oxygen tanks, feeding gas and oxygen into the fire simultaneously? Maybe it would be simpler just to build a fireless locomotive and charge it with steam boiled in a kettle?

Or how about an underwater steam locomotive - one that could actually run at the bottom of Compton Pond? There are still many unexplored frontiers in steam locomotive design...

mmmm, I wonder at what temperature water would boil and steam on the moon? must be possible to calculate if average air pressure known.

it might prove to take very little energy to create the steam if it boils at a much lower temperature... mmmm.... steam power in place of rockets for position readjustments?

kes wrote:.... steam power in place of rockets for position readjustments?

That's actually the plot device in the science fiction novel "Exiles to Glory" by Jerry Pournelle that lets Our Hero escape the clutches of the Fiendish Villains, rescue The Girl and save The Day! He makes a steam "rocket" from a domestic hot water heater and sundry plumbing supplies and uses it to escape from one asteroid to another.

Yes, it sounds implausible but the gravitational pull of those things is tiny and the numbers do add up- Dr Pournelle was a NASA employee for a while and knows his way round the relevant equations.