The OLR was born in the spring of 2006 after I had several phases of modelling, first as a OO gauge modeller in the loft. Then, with restricted space the next phase was N gauge in a shed with keen children who coped very well with this small scale.
After this time when the frustrations of this size of track were laid to rest, space was finally approved for a garden railway from the gardening department and so the OLR began with live steam engines!
Latest photos OLR first mini open day
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Early days
Great fun getting a Mamod
'William' up and running. Fitted up rated pressure valve, water filler valve
and meths burner. There are many other mods' that can be made to a
mamod but I didn't feel it worth the expense. |
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Edrig arrives Going up in the world with an Accucraft Edrig
from PPS Models. Needed a fair bit of running in and practice but
great fun. As this is a heavy beast I had to make sure all the
32mm Mamod track was nicely screwed down. |
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Edrig's first day out
A great afternoon at a local garden railway helped
with running in. Adjusting the wheels to 45mm first of course. |
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Track laying
Extending the oval from the pond to the bottom of the garden using wooden stake method and Peco 32mm track.
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| Works train complete with laser leveller. No that's not cotton wool! |  |
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| Oi- too close! |  |
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| Simplex plate frame 'petrol' engine ready
for painting. Kit from IP Engineering pulling Binnie Engineering Hudson Tipper wagon kits Painting completed. Silk finish might have been more appropriate but never mind. |
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| Radio Control Okay so I know that Edrig is really a manual engine at heart but I have never fitted R/C before. Tried a mini servo for the reverser and micro server under the regulator. Stuck on with temporary blue tack and tie wraps until a more permanent solution is found. But it works! Oh what joy to try some shunting. |
R/C is Hate Ranger III Sky 3 channel 40 KHz FM from Howe's Models in Oxford plus an inline dual charger for transmitter and the engine's receiver. The tiny micro servo eventually packed up as it probably hasn't the torque or it got wet inside. Decided that reverser only driving is fine anyway. The reverser link has an extra hole so connecting it up is a doddle! Later on I replaced this with a standard sized servo as the angle of throw of the servo horn being quite short was not quite far enough. Linked to a new hole in the reverser it can now easily be uncoupled for manual control. Also found just enough room underneath for the receiver and servo smoother.
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| First snow at the OLR
Snow clearance test circuit and could do with building a snow plough. |
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| Steamy outing for newly completed coach
kits. Umm its mighty cold eh Fred! |
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| Edrig mods:
Plastic coal bunkers made to disguise the gas filler and aerial. Added 'Locolines' decals Add-ons brake handle, new gas lever and safety valve cover from 'SM32' Name
plate from
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Also added a 'Sam 2' small servo smoother from Brian Jones as there were dead spots in the garden causing the 'rusty bolt effect' |
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Pics of the 16mm ngm National Show where our club layout Ridgemont was on show all day |
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Ok so its year 2 and track laying is now started with a years experimentation behind me. As I have plenty of spare bricks then these have formed the bed around the new pond. Getting these level is crucial for manual steam so this is done with great care. On top of the bricks I drilled and fixed plastic chipboard block joiners. I can then lay the track on top screwing into the plastic with room for ballast beneath. As these can swivel around the centre screw there is some adjustment available and the track can then easily be re-positioned. |
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| Whilst its raining some building of IP Engineering coaches are well on their way. Track plans when the weather improves involve doubling up the single track and loops for increased capacity to end up with a squashed dog bone circuit. | |||
| Pretty chilly open top coaches ready for first test run. |  |
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| Bendy points | I needed to add a point into a curve which
is a problem when you only have straight points. A member of the
club has sorted this by removing some of the inner sleeper ties on
his layout (below), so I have also tried this with some success. As the point
blades will be the wrong length after bending their length will need
to be reduced. Alternatively from underneath remove the small welded
locking pieces which prevent the outside rails from moving with a small
screwdriver. In this way you can also remove the whole rail and
pre-bend across your knee. Line up again with the point blades
when re-inserted and the points fixed down.
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| Snow | See video link for the snow plough in action | ||
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| Second snow fall of the year and tipper wagons left out overnight blocking the mainline! |  |
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| Snow plough work completed and tippers moved out of the way. Mind you by this time the snow was disappearing fast! |  |
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| Outing to a Northampton area 16mm group garden. Lady Karen passes a Roundhouse Lady Anne |  |
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| An excellent large garden railway with hidden vistas everywhere. |  |
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| Back at the OLR the circuit is now a squashed dog bone and trains can now pass each other in the centre. |
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Well, a Regner Vincent has arrived via the Merstham show, care of Martins Models. Careful running in next. First trials are impressive. |
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| Yes, I am very pleased with this nice
runner which, with its gearing can pull quite reasonable loads.
Initially I had to run fairly fast for what is a really slow runner
until it started to wear in. Going at very high speeds vibrates the
reverser and has the effect of slowing it down anyway. As the engine
has run in more and more gradually I can get the speed down. Longest
run so far now on one fill is 27 minutes running light engine before
needing any more water. Finally at around 40 minutes the gas ran
out. So the time trials will continue some more as I am told longer
runs may be possible when finally bedded in, although its had more
than 15 run's so far.
.The brass chain has lengthened somewhat over this time, even though well lubricated and the adjuster is at its limit but according to Martin this is ok. If it comes to it then pulling a link out would be the next job. From new the sight glass had a few small drops of water leaking out so on instruction from Martin again I gave the nut the slightest tweak. Unfortunately this made it worse and I found the glass was broken inside. This all happened before its outing to the club the next day so deep frustration and regrets at this point! So out with my small set of spanners to dismantle the glass. After gingerly taking off the top up pipe union and twisting the joint sideways I dropped out the now shorter tube and removed all the pieces of broken glass. Then followed removal of the ptfe tape at one end. The glass looked just long enough by about 1 mm to maybe fit back in so after twisting some new tape to make a fine thread I pushed this back into the gland nut and managed to fit it all back together and soon after a quick test was up and running again to immense relief. After quick phone call later on a replacement will be on its way just in case of further leaks. On this later version model the displacement lubricator has been turned sideways instead of poking out to the side. This is better although although the drain knob is rather more fiddly. The chain tensioner now faces away from the lubricator . |
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Konrad with home made roof meets Vincent |
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| Down at the club the next day all were
very interested in the new model and another member had brought his
Regner Konrad complete with home made roof to compare notes and we
ran them together which they did quite well. The roof certainly
would make a nice and cheap winter project.
Gas valves are always talked about with Regner engines and many owners often swap them with the Ronson type which blow back when the tank is full leaking a fair bit of gas at the same time. So far I have managed ok with a minutes top up when cold with no leaks at all as designed. Filling up when hot of course has the usual problem of getting the gas in. Cooling down the tank with water or letting some gas out doesn't seem to have much effect at the moment. |
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| Overall I'm very pleased with this new addition to the OLR engine shed which is rather different compared to Edrig. | |||
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Tune up
After a long time with Edrig being underpowered it has now been completely overhauled after a complete strip down and replacement of steam valve chests. Then I sent it off to Chuffed 2 Bits to complete the tune up to the normal Accucraft standards. Smoke box door fitted and new pistons/rings etc and now it can pull a decent length of train. Mind you 11 wagons as shown on the test run will use up a lot of steam so not normal practice! |
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| Return loop planted up at Ferndale Loop and fencing fitted either side. See comment below. |
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| Lining |
Next steps are to re-line Edrig as the transfers are dropping off as you can
see above. Good results with using an Edding paint pen will be updated later.
See last Edrig pic on visitors link.
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Latest News
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Had the first mini open day at the OLR with a handful of people
attending. Engines featured were a very old but well presented Pooter, Vale
of Rheidol, latest Accucraft Earl and an Edrig. This was a great
opportunity to see how they ran and I was pleased there were no de-railments.
Earl had trouble with its long wheelbase round the tight curves and
may work better if the back to back wheel distance is reduced 1
mm which was a handy tip passed to me.
The long chassis VoR I had not expected to visit and as I suspected hit the new fence I had installed around Ferndale loop. It was ok on the curves though so the fence will be broadened. Just goes to show how useful others are in this hobby to check out your Railway and offer advice.
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| Contact me | web @ tonyw . org . uk (Delete spaces first) |
