The last entry found me in state of excited antisipation. I had at last manged to finish an engine that happily trundled up and down my little three foot of test track on the straight and on a curve of four foot radius. It had also been around the EMGS test track and seemed to meet all of the criterea needed to say that this was a runner.

With the Tring show coming up, I carefully cleaned the wheels gave it a good oiling and packed it away ready for it's first public outing.

As usual we disregarded the fomality of have a test session as the layout worked fine at Tuanton a year ago.

We set up Swaynton on Friday evening and not having any power couldn't test it or 76009 until the morning.

We had a few little teething problems with the layout (I will do another blog entry) so 76009 had to make her inaugural appearance in service.

Now at this point I always have a feeling of trepidation as every loco that I have built, never seems to work on the layout unless someone else has totally rebuilt it. So confident that I had tested it and covered all the fualts found on previous builds I was ready to record its first progress and my first successful locomotive build on video.

There once was an engine called 76009,

who was afraid of the show,

it went into a tunnel and squeeked through it funnel,

I'll will never ever go!

(with apologies to the Rev Awdrey)

I won't post the video. As all it shows is an empty track before panning across to an elbow poking at a black shape. then there is some muttering before 76009 is lifted off the track.

It left the Fiddle yard ok. But when it poked its nose out of the tunnel it stopped. It was as dead as a dead thing could be!

I checked the controller settings and made sure that no-one had created a short on the track. The controller was showing a red light and getting hot! Indicating either a seized mechanisum or a short!

I took the engine to a table at the back of the layout and turned it onto it's back. Nothing seemed amiss so I unscrewed the locking screw on the driving gear to test for any binding. The wheels turned freely (except for the usual click that I couldn't trace). I tightned the screw and checked for a short on a meter. Hmmm no problem. I then put a piece of track on the upturned engine connected to a battery. The wheels went round fine and the rail shot across the bench.

So if there is no short, the chassis is free running and when power is applied the wheels go around, then it should chug up down the line?

I placed the engine on the track again, this time in the yard so as to elliminate the original controller. The engine is still dead and still shorting!

So I ask the question (to anyone within earshot) why can I never get a locomotive to work on this layout?

When I get home I start to check over 76009. I manage to knock it with my elbow and send the whole thing crashing to the floor.

Hmmm that didn't help much.

The cab was smashed off and I wonder if I have twisted the frame as the front pony wheel was jammed into frame and the front buffer was bent. As I recovered the bits off the floor I found that the boiler had come adrift and all the fancy pipework was coming away.

I was now starting to get a little dispondant with this project.

However the bodywork is not too bad and has almost been repaired. the chassis seems to be flat.

I stripped the whole chasis down and this is what I found.

I had soldered the pickups to PCB strips that I screwed onto the underside of the chassis. I had seen other people do this and it seemed to work. However the copper part of the board had delaminated. So when the model was upside down the PCB strip was laying in place with the pick up against the wheel. But when on the track it flopped down slightly and was shorting against the chassis. Grrrr.

On consultation with the 'experts' it would seem that I had used the wrong type of PCB board! Now not being an electrical engineer how am I supposed to know that?

Which brings me back to the one question,why can I not get get a locomotive to run on this layout?