On his arrival the next day, we cleared the track for leaves, then he placed the loco on the track... WOW I was amazed by the fine detail. He explained that he had had problems raising steam. He opened the gas valve and tried to light up, but it just burned around the chimney and inside the smokebox. I noticed that I could hardly hear any hiss of gas and so we took the jet out of the burner, blew it through and this time there was a healthy hiss. He fired up and after a while the safety valve was blowing off. He then said that he was not sure if it would run, as he had not really had an opportunity to try running it.
Well it ran beautifully, quite the sweetest running loco I have seen, it effortlessly meandered out of the station area and around the whole layout. To say I was impressed is an understatement ! It had 4 channel radio control, one channel for the regulator, the second for reversing, the third for the whistle, and the forth for radio controlled prototypical cylinder drain cocks ! Later in the afternoon, I drove it around the layout and discovered that the valve gear worked as in the full size, notching it slightly up or down kept it perfectly under control, up and down the gradients. In fact the valves were only opening by approx 15% maximum ( running light engine) with the regulator less than half open.
Amazing to think that someone with no previous experience of steam engines tackled a complex kit like this, and it ran perfectly on its first proper steaming !
There is only one thing with the design of the model that I think is strange.... why oh why did they design it with those dummy safety valves on the top of the dome, but put a safety valve on top of the boiler towards the cab? It could just as easily have been located inside the dome so the steam would seem to emerge from the dummy safety valves.
One neat feature was the tank filler covers, they actually opened and underneath the righthand tank filler cover, was the boiler top up valve.... neat !
The exhaust pipe from the steam generator will need shortening though, as can be seen in the photos it is rather too long and had had an arguement with the roof of my tunnel.
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, especially like you said, for a newbie! 
