Slippery Customer

The Dukedog is one of those mythical beasts for me.

There is only one, and I’ve never yet managed to see it, even through it spent the last couple of years on display in mid-Wales before its recent transfer to the Engine House on the SVR.

I was unable to resist the temptation to buy one of these Cambian icons to run on Minffordd, even though it is at the very edge of our 1960's period. 

I regret to say, however, that the performance of the Bachmann model is more than a little disappointing.

Oh yes. it runs very silkily, but don’t expect it to haul much.

On Minffordd where we have a sharp change in  gradient - a dip at the front of the scene to help with the illusion of the downhill plunge towards Portmadog - combined with curves which are on the radius 2 limit, leave it slipping to a stand with just two carriages!

Even the shortest of freight trains - and on the Cambrian there were some very short freight trains sometimes - it struggles because our brake vans have been fitted with retarding devices to help us shunt wagons on the gradient, thus causing a lot of drag.

So Himself is going to have a tinker to see what can be done.

A bit of search engine bothering has pulled up a couple of suggestions, one of which is to fit weaker spring between the front bogie and the frame, with a theory that if it is too strong it may lift the front driving wheels off the rail a little.

Another thing which has been tried before is to fit a spring above the drawbar to the tender to create a downward force on the back of the loco.

Himself will also be looking for places we’re some extra lead weight might be hidden, although the opportunities for that look to be limited on initial examination.

I shall, of course, report back in our findings.

If all else fails then expect a few light engine movements if you ever get to see Minffordd at an exhibition.

Seven Steamers

We’ve completed the loco line up for the show in Glasgow with the sound chipping of the 43XX which was a gift from the Engineering Consultant on the occasion of the layout’s debut last October.

These Churchward moguls probably aren’t the first class which comes to mind when you think of Cambrian steam but there’s plenty of photo evidence of them around the Porthmadog area in the 1960s.

It joins our existing ex-GWR allocation including the maid of all work, the Collett Goods, which is one of those in the stock box awaiting weathering.

Representative of the earliest years of our 1960s period is the Dukedog, a younger-than-it-looks class which was seeing out its final days.

This Bachmann model is limited by being rather light on its feet and can struggle a little with the gradients and drag on our tight curves, so loadings have to be managed carefully.

Making a rare foray up the coast line our iconic Cambrian engine, a Manor.

This period witnessed the changeover to the new Standard classes.

Our trio are made up of the Standard 4MT tender we featured a few days ago. 

The sole tank engine in our fleet, for now, is the 3MT.

And another needs-to-be-dirtied is the 2MT, not to be confused with its near relative the ex-LMS Ivatt design.