Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Shunt The Pony

I thought we'd take a deviation from modelling, just for a little while, to show you some evidence of why nothing much is happening on the building the layout (the real purpose of this blog, after all) and because if you're reading this it's likely you've got more than a passing interest in the FR and the WHR and so might quite like to see the pictures anyway.

Himself has 'wasted' another weekend of valuable construction time playing around with 12 inch to the foot trains in the top left hand corner of Wales, once again lending his services to the 'Greasers Express' team during their quarterly fettling of the points on the FR / WHR system.

One of their extra jobs this time was to move Welsh Pony to another stable at Glan y Pwll.




I've always had a very soft spot for this rusty old nag, and there has been a great deal of intriguing talk in the last couple of years about whether the time has now come to return her to service?

There is, however, a very nuanced debate about the rights and wrongs of restoring one of the few remaining untouched artefacts from the orginal FR company which centre around the fact that to make it work again there wouldn't be very much of the original loco left. (Just like the 'original' FR engines which are in service - Prince, Merddin Emrys & Palmerston)

I'm firmly in favour of getting her going again and my money is ready and waiting for someone to start up a proper Welsh Pony restoration fund.

(I do realise that the FR Society has had a Welsh Pony fund for many years now but it is not, and this is the pertinent point, for the express purpose of restoring the locomotive to running order.)

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8 comments:

  1. Andy Elms5 October 2011 at 17:34

    While I respect your point of view, and your right to have an opinion...

    I personally think she's a pile of junk, underpowered almost as soon as she was delivered and should have been scrapped for parts in 1954.

    And restoring her to working order? While people are free to donate to whatever projects they like, this one will need a lot of cash and end up looking 99% like two other loco's.

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  2. Rob Waller5 October 2011 at 17:38

    And while I respect your opinion...How can anyone who worships the rails Moel Hebog runs on accuse any other machine of being an under-powered pile of junk?? ;-)

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  3. Andy Elms5 October 2011 at 21:10

    Touche. I knew there was a flaw in my argument.

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  4. Chris Ford6 October 2011 at 09:32

    And the alternative is to let her rot? I'd say if there is cash,restore. But why is she painted blue?

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  5. Neil12 October 2011 at 16:57

    I'm in the leave it alone camp; perhaps there aren't many of us but I was pretty convinced by a piece in Steam Railway where one of the top chaps at the NRM presented a strong case for leaving the few largely untouched/unrestored locos be.

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  6. Iain Robinson10 December 2011 at 13:06

    Seems funny from me, someone who wouldn't mind doing whatever it needed to keep the locos running, including state of the art combustion technology...but I think it would be nice to leave the old chap like "Princess", painted maroon, please, and rolled out for people to go "ooh" over every high day and holiday. I'd like all attention to be focussed on "Prince"...but then I'm biased. Great blog, by the way...only just discovered it.

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  7. choo-choo-fish16 April 2012 at 18:47

    Ha ha. Love the "playing around with 12 inch to the foot trains again" Ha ha.

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  8. Unknown14 June 2012 at 13:41

    i say just to pour oil on the fire if 99% would need replaced, then set the pony aside for display with L.T. returned to original livery and do what they did with EoM and build a newer and better Pony

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