Well the K3 went over to Lincolnshire and had a few miles running in on ‘Retford’, with thanks to Mr. Jackson. I was very pleased that it performed near perfectly; at least it ran smoothly and without derailment. However this simply proves that my first attempts at scratch-building EM track were far from good enough, because the near perfect running on ‘Retford’ compares with no better than ‘just about acceptable running’ on ‘Wheegram Sidings’!

The other problem shown up on the visit to Retford’ was that while the K3 started its 11 coach train on the flat, as soon as adverse gradients were tackled there was an unacceptable amount of slipping, but only on the steepest accent, which is also on a curve, did the loco slip to a standstill. Even then, more cautious driving kept the train under-way on later circuits. All quite pleasing.

On my layout the K3 will never need to cope with such loads but I shall look at adding as much weight as possible over the drivers because when it does go a-visiting, the K3 will be expected to do typical K3 work!

Both the J72 and the J50 also had a good shunt at ‘Retford’, and again performed better there than at home. Either a tribute to Roy’s track making skills or a condemnation of mine!?!

There is no doubt that I must improve the point work at ‘Wheegram’.

Some regular visitors here may be wondering about the J94 which was my first EM conversion. Well it has been over to Lincolnshire on previous visits and proved its self on Geoff Kent’s ‘ Blakeney’.

So my first four EM locos have performed very acceptably on high quality layouts. All that’s now needed is for me to get my track building skills improved.

I am wondering if, when building the EM points for ‘Wheegram’, I took the attitude that “ these are only EM and there’s much more latitude compared to S4â€. I will ensure much more care second time round.