Lady Anne restored to full health

 

When I failed to persuade my Roundhouse Lady Anne to light at a meeting, I decided it was time to look at the renovations the bargain loco needed properly. 

I'm willing to admit that I know little about tiny steam trains. More than some, but less than others. One of those other being my freind John Campbell. A metal basher and loco builder from the Black Country. 

So, I had a chat and he agreed to assess the loco and tell me what I needed to do. I passed to the model over to one of his mates at Llanfair show, for delivery to John. "I bet he won't be able to stop himself taking it apart." I was told with a laugh. 

He wasn't wrong. A couple of days later, I had a call, and then a series of photos showing the model in bits. 

The good news is that it's not in terrible shape. The non-working pressure gauge was traced to a bunged up pie running to it. A dip in the pickeling solution cured this. There was some weepy pipework, cured with a bit of silver solder. 

And the bolts holding down the back end of the boiler have been replaced. I had planned to do as much of the work myself as possible, but John described drilling out bolts in the boiler as "squeeky bum time", and it was a job that required a better pillar drill than I own - so I was happy to let him do this!

The loco came back to me at the L&WMRS reopening, but it took me a week to find time to get it out on the track. 

As you can see, it steams well. Really well. John tells me there is wear, but nothing to worry about. The loco is 25 years old, but has plenty of life in it for the time being. 

Of course, things didn't run quite smoothly. On the track, it wouldn't light. I could get a POP when holding a flame over the chimney, but no burner sound. I diagnosed a blocked jet, and working on the nothing ventured, nothing gained principle, decided to take a look. 

Undoing the pipe from valve to burner, I worked out that the valve was working, so extracted the jet, and blasted gas through it. Reassembling it with the jet poking upwards, I could now hear gas flow, so put it all back together properly, and it worked!

I know this is a fairly simple job, but I'm well pleased with myself for doing it. All that chatting to people like John and I'm learning a little.