Play trains!
A full house so yes, today we could finally play trains. Theoretically, this was mainly to test how we might use the cassettes in an exhibition scenario, but it would also allow us to run a lot of John's old stock and provide a few more hours learning how best to operate the layout.
All running sessions start with a clean-up, so, while Stephen cleared superfluous items, hoovered modelling debris, cleaned the track and installed the power units, Laurence finished off the cassettes by gluing-in the red, centre guides. Geoff, having found the first few items of stock he unpacked needed attention to wheels and coupling etc. repaired them. Finally, we loaded up a few cassettes and had a play.
One thing we knew we had to do was to keep the fiddle area free, but at no point was this achieved. However, the cassettes themselves worked perfectly.
Stephen's railcar inspired by a 4w unit on the Longmoor Military Railway and built on a Bachmann US BO-BO diesel chassis.
And it's companion bogie flat wagon with a load of portable track for the quarry.
John's scratch-built McEwan Pratt WW1 loco with repainted figure. This was one of the mine locos.
Another mine loco found was a Grandt Line Plymouth battery loco kit into which John had squeezed a scratch-built chassis. However, the horrendous grinding noise it produced, the inaccessibility of the chassis and the fact that we didn't need such a vehicle meant that it was consigned back to its box.
Stephen's freelance ic unit (Tenshodo spud chassis) newly fitted with a driver and cab detail. It's only taken 26 years to complete!
It often runs with a train of Peco timber bolsters made-up as disconnects and a toolbox wagon derived from a Peco flat wagon. Two interchangeable loads are available - logs and prepared timber. These will form a perfect quarry traffic element, running full and light.
John's original layout had 'a mine' with a short storage section and a low tunnel entrance that demanded that both the locos and wagons were all small. We found a rake of Johns small mine wagons that we think were based on Gem chassis components. These use long-shank Kadees and have 'narrow' back-to-back measurements, both of which conspire to make them awkward to couple/uncouple. After a discussion, it was decided (as well as re-gauging) to swap intermediate couplings for hook & bar type and just have Kadees at the ends.
This raised a long overdue subject... The new Worton Court tunnel has a standard loading gauge and no storage restrictions, which deliberately opened up the potential line uses and stock. Whilst it has usually been referred to as a quarry, not a lot of thought has gone into what stock we would run there. Apart from the timber train (and John's short rake of opens), we had no other specific quarry stock. Stephen suggested that, to get started, we could pool our Peco GVT wagons, that we all seemed to have. It would require the fulls/empties issue to be addressed, so we need to dig them out and bring them together, for consideration. If this proves unsuccessful, we might need to reassess what is located on the other end of the tunnel. Gulp!
