Not just one new steamer has arrived on the Moel Rhos this year, but two, the first of which is this Roundhouse Katie. I’ve wanted a Katie for the Moel Rhos for 10 years, when I was inspired by the loco Chris Bird fitted with a slomo, as I wrote back then. I wrote back then “It’s not a contender because (with R/C and slomo) it is more than 3 time my budget”. But earlier this year, spotting one (without slomo) at an attractive price on a popular auction site, I took a punt, and it joins the fleet as No 11.
It’s even the same colour as the one in the Summerlands video! It’s not a youngster (18 years old) but Roundhouse are very good at supplying parts should I need it… and I was prepared for some upgrading to be required.
However, this was the video I took on the day the postie dropped it off.
It runs well, sometimes occasionally getting stuck in one direction if it stops in a certain position. I may get a Cylinder Service Kit from Roundhouse to sort this but to be honest, it’s not stopped me having fun running it – and I have been so slow in blogging about this new arrival that it’s been almost six months. Indeed I think the issue has improved with running.
I already have three steam locos: two geared which are excellent slow runners, and a manual loco, which has its charm and its limitations. The different qualities that this loco will bring, will be direct drive (and the accompanying chuff – it has a chuff pipe fitted already) with radio control and good slow starting and stopping, for which I will need an SSP Slomo (now back in production with Wilson Locomotives, so I will be contacting them about getting hold of one).
It has to have a whistle of course, but with Regner whistles fitted between the frames on my other locos, this time I intend to fit a DJB whistle which is mounted on the cab front in the correct place for a real whistle, with the sound coming out of the correct place. Some clever engineering apparently results in the sound resonating down to the correct frequency.
So far, however, I have done very little except take it to several meet-ups and enjoyed running it at home. The only thing I’ve done is remove the vinyl lining – I am very taken with the Roundhouse blue (and many friends have commented on the colour) so I think I will be adopting this as the Moel Rhos loco livery. It is still running with nameplates (unfortunately rather firmly fixed on) as “Lady Enya” but I have a new name in mind for this loco when I manage to prise them off…
News of the second new arrival will follow shortly…
