Last weekend I took the coal-fired Ragleth on its first “away” fixture, a visit to the Hoffnant Valley Railway. This picturesque line has two loops, both of which have relatively fierce gradients.
This was the fourth (and fifth and sixth) times I’ve steamed the loco up, and none of these were as successful as my first three runs. On the plus side, it did make it (light engine) around the smaller loop a few times. But while I managed to get a good fire going and get pressure up, as soon as I started running it seemed to drop away, and I lost the fire – and it seemed to get worse each time. I’m not really sure why, though I have given the tubes a good clean in case anything was blocked. I haven’t had a chance to run it since. Maybe it was just the pressure of having a (small) audience combined with nerves over running on an unfamiliar line, and I rushed it, or used too much charcoal (which I’m told can produce excessive ash). One thing about the many variables with coal firing is it certainly makes it hard to figure out what I’m doing wrong! But hopefully I will get a better feel for it.
I also took the Moel Rhos Boulton, so I ran that, and I also managed to snap several pictures of locos belong to or visiting the line and make this short video:
