Viewing Single Post From: Miniature Railway World Review of 2007

Viewing Single Post From: Miniature Railway World Review of 2007
SteveK	12 Dec 2007, 10:05 PM
Ticket Collector Posts: 53 Group: Friends of MRMT Committee Member #32 Joined: August 25, 2006	As our contribution to the miniature railway reviews of 2007, I thought I’d review the developments on our 5” gauge line - the ‘Tat Bank Railway’. We started the year with our new Ride on Railways ‘Hercules’ loco as our main motive power – our ‘Polly’ steam loco not being used. Finally, the decision was taken to sell the ‘Polly’ – with our other (mainly musical !!) commitments taking up a lot of our spare time, we simply did not get time to use her. We found a buyer quite quickly, and used the proceeds to order a Ride on Railways ‘Hercules’ with the Y6 Tram body. Our ‘Hercules’ has been 100% reliable, it can pull anything we hang behind it and Lewis loves the Tram version, so the decision was made !! After a long wait (Paul at RoR is very busy – which is good news as his products are excellent), our chassis has arrived and we are currently eagerly awaiting the body kit. One evening I was surfing some American miniature sites when I stumbled across http://www.scalediversions.com. They produce the ‘Railpup’ – a sit on, pedal powered (by your hands !!) trolley for the USA market. They looked so much fun, we simply had to have one !! I exchanged a few emails with Ken Stanfield who was happy to build us a ‘Railpup’ to 5” gauge and ship it to the UK. We placed an order and a few weeks later a very large box arrived at the office. Although it was the start of November and very dark and cold when I got home, we had to unpack the new arrival and have a few laps. Its certainly going to make our arms ache, but I know what’s going to be the most popular item of rolling stock on our line !! Many thanks go to Ken for building the ‘Railpup’ to our specific requirements and for getting it shipped over. With the sale of the ‘Polly’, we no longer needed our driving trolley, so I decided to build another plywood coach body to fit on the chassis. This would enable us to run a train of 4 coaches – the whole family could have a ride !! Following (another) visit to the Welsh Highland Railway, Lewis decided that we should have a ‘Pullman’ coach, so my challenge was set. Lots of plywood and MDF later, we had the basic shell. Several coats of paint were applied to achieve a suitably high quality finish, following which door handles, plastic window surrounds and crests were added to finish the job. Its certainly the pride of our fleet now !! With the purchase of the Tram and ‘Railpup’, our attention focussed on keeping trains apart safely. I’ve written an article for ‘Home Railway’ magazine (a superb Amercian magazine aimed at folk interested in ride on railways around their gardens) which gives all the details, but suffice to say that we now have 4 semaphore signals for a total outlay of Ł25 !! Looking back its been a progressive 12 months on the Tat Bank railway and we look forward to lots of operating sessions during 2008. I now have my eye on some ‘Ride on Railways’ automatic colour light signals, but we’ll have to see how that develops. We’ve also managed to visit quite a few other miniature lines, including Rudyard Lake, the Dragon MR, Brookside MR and Woodseaves MR. We have had a great time at each and every one of them which has only reminded us of the pleasure we all get out of miniature railways – happy Christmas !!
	All the best, Steve Kesterton. Visit www.kestertons.co.uk and click on the Tat Bank Railway

Miniature Railway World Review of 2007 · Miniature Railway World Digest