courtesy of Mike Darby of Chuffed2bits fame....
About seven years ago I was running it over at main131's great track when he asked me to oversee the running of an Accucraft Mogul that needed some attention. I handed the loco over to two elderly gentlemen who had brought nothing to run, but nevertheless told me that they knew all about running steam engines, so in a fit of manic generosity I handed over the train, with the water bottle and controller, advising them of the need to keep an wary eyeball on the water level....
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Twenty minutes later I looked up to see how they were doing, to see the loco and its five Marklin ozeanblau coaches standing motionless on the track, fizzing gently. The fizzing was coming from the fried electronics and the horrific smell emanated from the smokebox stays [melting] and the pointy smokebox front [heatproof paint popping off as I watched]. This movie was made about half an hour earlier, and shows that it really did know how to strut its stuff in the grand manner -
There was no water in the boiler but the fire was still going. They couldn't imagine what had gone wrong, of course.
Hastily turning off the gas, and giving the loco a gentle push gave no results at all - the whole thing had seized up solid and had to be left for half an hour to free up. Had it been later in the day it might just have glowed, a little. The smokebox stays were misshapen blobs on the pilot beam by then - many of the handrail retainers had also disappeared into teeny blobs of shapeless plastic, and the smell was summat awful. The unusual 'streamlined' smokebox front had innumerable 'warts' in the heatproof paint and the internal latches that held it on didn't.
I gave it to the late ELR company to fix, who charged me a considerable sum to replace nearly every component that moved. It was returned to me some time later, but damaged by the handlers, who managed to fling the fifteen pound loco around enough to break off the lubricator adjuster and arrange to actually bend the cab sides - amazing. Of course, it never again worked as advertised, and I was resigned to sticking it on the shelf as a sad reminder of how to spend a couple of thousand euros for an unwanted, if attractive, paper-weight.
Last year in a fit of FGS I gave the loco to Mike Darby to fix, a man I knew and trusted. Knowing that other things were on his mind for a while, I waited until he contacted me - and this he did, by Youtube. So here it is - working better than it has done since those heady days of newness. I look forward greatly to running it again - it really is a very beautiful model.
About seven years ago I was running it over at main131's great track when he asked me to oversee the running of an Accucraft Mogul that needed some attention. I handed the loco over to two elderly gentlemen who had brought nothing to run, but nevertheless told me that they knew all about running steam engines, so in a fit of manic generosity I handed over the train, with the water bottle and controller, advising them of the need to keep an wary eyeball on the water level....
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Twenty minutes later I looked up to see how they were doing, to see the loco and its five Marklin ozeanblau coaches standing motionless on the track, fizzing gently. The fizzing was coming from the fried electronics and the horrific smell emanated from the smokebox stays [melting] and the pointy smokebox front [heatproof paint popping off as I watched]. This movie was made about half an hour earlier, and shows that it really did know how to strut its stuff in the grand manner -
There was no water in the boiler but the fire was still going. They couldn't imagine what had gone wrong, of course.
Hastily turning off the gas, and giving the loco a gentle push gave no results at all - the whole thing had seized up solid and had to be left for half an hour to free up. Had it been later in the day it might just have glowed, a little. The smokebox stays were misshapen blobs on the pilot beam by then - many of the handrail retainers had also disappeared into teeny blobs of shapeless plastic, and the smell was summat awful. The unusual 'streamlined' smokebox front had innumerable 'warts' in the heatproof paint and the internal latches that held it on didn't.
I gave it to the late ELR company to fix, who charged me a considerable sum to replace nearly every component that moved. It was returned to me some time later, but damaged by the handlers, who managed to fling the fifteen pound loco around enough to break off the lubricator adjuster and arrange to actually bend the cab sides - amazing. Of course, it never again worked as advertised, and I was resigned to sticking it on the shelf as a sad reminder of how to spend a couple of thousand euros for an unwanted, if attractive, paper-weight.
Last year in a fit of FGS I gave the loco to Mike Darby to fix, a man I knew and trusted. Knowing that other things were on his mind for a while, I waited until he contacted me - and this he did, by Youtube. So here it is - working better than it has done since those heady days of newness. I look forward greatly to running it again - it really is a very beautiful model.
