A Job For The Dukedog At Last

I posted in the build up to the Glasgow show about our struggles to get our Bachmann Dukedog to do any useful work  on Minffordd because it struggled with the combination of gradients and very tight curves.

You can read that post here.

The solution presented itself to me in a moment of serendipity as I wandered towards the tea and coffee room past the display of one of the second hand traders I buy from most often - The Junction Box.

There on Ian's stall, calling to me, was a Bachmann inspection saloon in crimson and cream livery, which is much more appropriate to our era than the blue/grey example we already have in our stock box.

I had intended to resist all temptations over the weekend, but this seemed like it had my name on it.

Plus, a not half an hour previously, we'd just been presented with our prize for Best In Show, so I figured I deserved to treat myself as a small reward.

I can report that the Dukedog can manage to haul this one carriage around the layout, however I doesn't have the guts to propel it up the slope into the exchange yard, slipping to a stand before it is halfway up...

That is not to say that the tinkering which Himself carried out before the show has not made some difference.

It will manage - just - to haul three Bachmann Mk1s with the weights removed in the Pwllheli direction - but going the other way it will slip to a stand when it hits the tight curve into the fiddle yard.

There is limited scope for adding more weight to this model and Himself has tried three alterations.

1) Shortening the spring above the front bogie to equalise the contact of the four coupled wheels.

2) As another means to achieve this he has added a very gentle spring between the coupling bar and the base of the tender, again to direct a downward force on the driving wheels.

3) Some very small and thin pieces of lead have been fixed to the baseplate between the driving wheels.

As you can read above, the effect has been quite minimal, but at least we've found something it can do on the layout.

Eventually I suppose we might learn how to do double-headers - or 'consists' as they insist on calling them - using our NCE handsets, but from reading the instructions that looks like a very complicated process which requires many steps to be memorised....