Willi on the tracks

  

Excitement got the better of me and a day after Willi completed his test run on the bench, I brushed the leaves off the garden railway, hacked back a few plants that were encroaching on the rails and tested the line with a Piko Clean Machine. 

The rail clamps had done their work and everything was swiftly in operation. 

Willi was flipped over and after searching out the correct Allen key size, his wheels were loosened on the axles and moved to the correct gauge for my line. 

On the track, pressure was once again quickly raised after a little faffing around with the burner. I think I overfilled the gas tank as we had a few "burps" before settling down to a nice, steady burn. I'm one for turning the gas down as low as possible after hearing many stories of Accucraft locos with burnt paint on the smokebox because their owners like to hear the roar from the other end of the garden. 

With pressure raised, I gently opened the regulator and was really pleased to see the loco trundle off slowly. 

No high-speed travel for this machine, it potters at a very realistic speed. Or at least did until it tried to exit the tunnel when the chimney caught on the portal top. 

The problem was tiny - a couple of mm and I seriously considered attacking the cement with a chisel, but in the event, just shuffled the track back and forth to dig into the ballast a bit more and provide clearance. 

The re-start was slightly marred by setting fire to a plant, but only one leaf and there are loads more. Turn the burner up too far and you get some impressive flames shooting out of the chimney!

After this, Willi pottered around for around 20 minutes (I think, I forgot to time it) followed by another session because I was so pleased. He handles the slight gradients on my line easily enough and will surely haul a reasonable train. 

A train? Well all the 45mm stock I have is LGB and colourful. Willi needs his own wagons and that's another project/excuse.