Alco Overhaul

Our Mountaineer has been ailing for some time - although at least, unlike the real one, it was still in service.

Its progress was very erratic, both in starting and when on the run, until finally it expired in a cloud of smelly smoke.

The problem clearly lay with the motor, but Himself was reluctant to break up the spare Arnold chassis we have in stock for a motor transplant.

Instead he was even more ambitious and found a way to extract the the commutator from another, even older, chassis and install it into the motor housing of the one under our operational Alco.

We gave it a test at the weekend and it performs very well now.

It does still irk me that it's the only locomotive we have left in our fleet with an inaccurate chassis, and I retain an ambition to get him to have a go at fitting a Farish O8 chassis into a spare body kit I obtained for just this purpose.

The trouble is there's always something else in the build queue ahead of it.

I suppose at least that's prototypical......

A Tonic For ALCO-holics

Himself has added another string to his bow - that of movie director!

Recently word got out that back in the early 1990's he shot quite a lot of video footage around the railway and now this archive has been digitised and he's given permission for it to be used and sold as the latest edition of Jon Marsh's DVD series.

Now as far as I know he's not getting a cut of the profits (or least if he is he's keeping it a secret from me!) so I have no ulterior motive for promoting the DVD here.

I do so because I believe a lot of FR enthusiasts will appreciate some of the footage, in particular those who are still pining for the Alco Mountaineer.

Without a doubt my favourite scene out of all that we shot those summers a quarter of a century ago was a down train leaving Tanygrisiau.

Mountaineer stormed up the bank with the driver making good use of that amazing chime whistle which was echoing around the mountains.

Here's a still I took from that moment.

Don't buy this DVD just for the pictures - buy it for the sound track!

Other highlights include footage of Conway Castle in main line service and, in the light of recent news about a re-assigning of carriage 111 to the departmental fleet, the disc includes some nostalgic  sequences with the push-pull actually set being pushed!

Himself was also there with his camera when DLG made one of its first forays along The Cob in an incomplete state.

All in all this DVD comes highly recommended. You would expect me to say that, wouldn't you.

The Agony Of Choice

I made an impulse purchase in Hull. One of these:

Well, the price was as good as anything you find online, if not better, so why not indulge myself with an early Christmas present?

These outside frame Farish 08's have become very popular with OO9 modellers, especially when combined with RT Models range of etched brass valve gear to fit on it.

But the question is what to use it for?

For a while now I've intended to (get Himself to) build a replacement Mountaineer adding valve gear and some fake bar frames.

Our existing Alco has a very nice body, with the cab re-profiled to the current Fairlie-style outline, but it runs on an inside frame Arnold chassis with tiny wheels and, frankly the whole thing looks very toy train.



I've already got an unmade GEM kit in stock because I'd prefer to build it around the Farish chassis rather than attempt to hack the old one about.

Now, however, I'm beginning to have some doubts.

For one thing the Alco is currently sitting out of use, and although there are and increasing number of FR supporters making a noise about getting it going again for its centenary it's very much at the bottom of the railway's priority list - and with Lyd and the Ladies around there's no shortage of medium-sized locomotives on the FR.

What's more, although Mountaineer had two spells working out of Dinas on the WHR in the early days of the restoration it never got further south than Waunfawr. So it really would be modeller's licence for it to turn up at Beddgelert.

So can I justify another Alco when instead we could use the chassis on one of these?

In Fiji's favour is that it has made a number of trips to Beddgelert - when it was the FR's favourite plaything last summer - and it would certainly look interesting on the layout.

On the other hand we would have to completely scratch build the body.  (I'd probably even attempt the bodywork myself if Himself handled the mechanicals) It would be an entertaining project, but it could be quite time consuming.

What should we do?