Marther my dear

 

While clearing out a shed in the garden whose roof is more hole then felt, I found a couple of big plastic boxes containing some of my venerable garden railway stock. In the bottom, was this cod Simplex that I must have built in the 1980s. 

As with all my modelling in this era, cost was the main priority, or at least keeping it down was. 

A stripwood square supports some Coopercraft running gear. Power comes from a cheapo motor, and plastic gears, almost certainly from Proops Pound Packs. The body is plastic and cardboard, with some bits from old plastic kits thrown in. 

Once I'd worked out how to the remove the body, it's held down with a single screw, I found the battery compartment holding a single AA cell, and a motor fitted with a crude lead flywheel. No idea why I did this, but I'll have read that flywheels make models run better, so had a go at making one with my limited skills and equipment. 

Battery installed, nothing much happened. I oiled all the bearings, and spun the motor over by hand, and it started to try to move. A bit more spinning and the loco would move forward, but stuttered in reverse. More perseverance though, and she runs! After 30 years at least. Reverse still isn't as good as forward, but I'm sure it will come. The flyweel sort of works too, keeping the motor running for a fw seconds. 

What next? 

Well, a little work, and this will become a "Layout in a Day" loco. Slow running, and reasonably heavy, I can see it doing a few circuits of any future temporary line. Maybe some pipes to the radiator, and a seat bck for the driver, are in order, but it would be nice to rescue her from the shed, and put her into service. 

The name. Most of my locos are named after pets. Marther was a cat, and I've no idea how she spelt her name. Poshly in this case!