Large Scale Central

2 9/16th inch to the foot

model of the ffestiniog RR’s Baguley-Drewry MoW loco, ‘Harlech Castle/Castell Harlech’ last sunday. Just before the crowds arrived for our open day - all twenty of 'em - I got the chance to test out the sound system recently installed by my pal Mike Coote of the Kings Lynn Society of Model Engineers. I bought that a few years back from Rod Johnson in Corbeil ONT, when we were up playing trains at the ONR depot near North Bay - but that’s anopther story… Mike is also responsible for a complete re-wiring and ‘re-controllering’ of the loco, so that it complies with the latest PITA H&S requirements. The laser-cut window frames have yet to be installed - a job for a spare day this week sometime.

Internal motive power is a 1.5 rated HP Bosch motor running from two gigantic deep-cycle marine boat motor batteries - each weighs in at around 90 pounds. They are common around these parts as many extended stretches of our local river are prohibited to infernal combustable engines - only electrically-driven boats are permtted. A third battery powers the halogen lighting, two-tone UK-style horn [a REAL set from a big Scania road hauler] and the Dallee sound system.

This actual loco was the prototype of a run of six built by a local piano teacher about ten years ago. Mine is the only one left here in UK - the rest went to Switzerland and points north and south on the mainland. The rather odd scale is a figment of the builder’s imagination - no reason was ever given for a scale that has no rationale in modelling that I can detect. It was as though he picked up a wheel one day, and said to himself…‘hmmmmmmmmmm…now THIS wheel just might be the right diameter for a model of ‘Harlech Castle’, if nobody notices that the scale is somehwat odd…’ What old Reg, whose first language is Welsh, ACTUALLY might have said was this - ‘Tybed beth fyddai hyn yn addas olwyn? Effelai, mae ‘model’ mawr o Gastell Harlech? Gadewch i ni weld beth y gallaf ei wneud, nid oes gwahaniaeth i’r Saesneg yr hyn y mae’r gymhareb raddfa yn.’

It is massively-built on a truly industrial scale - each set of wheels and axles weighs in at just under forty pounds, and the 3/4" plate frames weigh over 100 pounds per side. Add to this the scale-sized rods and counterweights and the complete loco tips the scale at just over 750 pounds - a real load to hanmandle. Neeless to say, it hauls everything we have on the line with contemptuous ease, and on an excursion to a nearby track some years back hauled six 1/3 ton cars with a total of fifty-six passengers on board.

See more at www.fenlandlightrailway.co.uk or, on youtube, fenland light railway.

Oh yes, for this clip, turn up the sound…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEYnTi6uOVE

tac

Dear All,

So, how do you move something that big from place to place?

I think the smile on the face in the video shows why we can’t get tac to move closer.

Perhaps if we can get him to say something slightly politically incorrect, they’ll chase him across the pond.

Joe

Joe - I’m ALWAYS saying something politically incorrect, that’s why I’m so reviled by certain persons over on the ‘other’ forum. Still, it would be a boring old world if everybody loved you, and I have to say that my life so far has been one of thriving on adversity - the GFO knows I’ve had plenty of practice.

It moves on a specially-built trailer, BTW.

Carefully.

tac

EDIT - I’ve done it again, folks. Over on the ‘other’ forum, that is. I put 'em up, and the other gentleman knocks 'em down. Sometimes I really do wonder why I bother at all. And then I think, well, this guy obviously has a great need to make somebody - anybody - look small, and if it wasn’t me, then it might be somebody who couldn’t take it. So I stay.

Cool - Looks like you had a great time.

Well, historically-speaking, NEXT sunday is the biggy. Last year we had over 200 visitors on the day, and were STILL giving rides half an hour after we had officially closed. Just can’t say no, us.

I know it doesn’t seem like a big crowd, but around here that can be the entire population of a village…without the chickens, though.

tac

Large Scale indeed. I am quite envious :smiley:

H&S = Health & Safety?

Gauge of prototype loco?, Gauge of Fenland track?

Thanks.

Joe

H&S = Health and Safety.

The Ffestiniog gauge is 1ft 11.5in.

The model gauge is 7.25"

See - http://www.festrail.co.uk/main.shtml

It is the Welsh Highland Railway part that has all the Garratt locos in use. I have the AccuCraft model lettered up as ‘ACR’ - Alfred County Railway in Natal RSA.

Slightly OT - but the Fenland track is the only miniature steam railway in the entire British Isles that is below sea level. Between 6 and 8 feet, to be precise. The only thing between us and submerged operation is the inteference of the Denver Sluice, about fifteen miles away across the totally flat and formerly swamp landscape.

tac

More and noisier run-by - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS5u9EBMIhQ

tac & ig

Tac,

Looks like you’re having “more fun than a human being should be allowed to have”.

Joe

Yes, entirely too much fun…:wink:

… And with his pants on, too.

Yup - you should have been at the Santa Specials! The weather here was near the same as you guys had in Tronna! Just more expensive, is all.

tac, ig & The Bay of Quinte Boys
Ottawa Valley GRS