Not all my loco fleet made it to the weekend. A week of testing at home persuaded me that there were a couple of models that would be more trouble than they would be worth, So, they stayed at home, and also missed out on a proper photo, having to make do with mobile phone shots.
First up, the Garratt. No great surprise here, it's always been a problem child. We have shunted with it in the past, just so I could say I had, but the front power unit seemed to have an aversion to some of the points, and there is still a stick spot in the mechanicals. With more time, and more shows lined it, I'd have it on the bench and work out if the running maladies are mechanical or electrical. I suspect a bit of pickup tweaking would help, but that's for another day. Let's face it, this isn't exactly the perfect shunter for a 6-foot layout!
The other was the Lewin shunter.
To be fair, this has never been part of the Dock loco fleet, but as it's a very appropriate model, I decided to try it out.
There are a couple of reasons it wasn't practical. The first is that the model runs on Gibson wheels, and these are a little finer than the Romfords the track is built for. Matching track and wheel standards are a must for reliable running, and this wasn't happy with a couple of the points.
A bigger problem though, is that massive dumb buffers. The gap between them is a pretty small target for the Sprat and Winkle hook to find, and coupling up was more miss then hit. I'm not sure what I could do about this, those buffers are a bit part of this model's look, replacing them with something more conventional would ruin it.
Fortunately, I'm not short of rolling stock, so this isn't a problem, but it shows that you have to make hard decisions sometimes in the name of reliable operation.
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