Plumloco

Dear Dr Al, Removed the Iron Duke's drive shaft and ran the motor up. Lots of vibration and noise, suspect you are right about the bearing. Spoke to Osborns and a replacement is promised in the post tonight, which is excellent.

Thanks for the tip Alan, I will try that during my next break from the avalanche of pre-Christmas chores that has just been dumped on me.

Got my Iron Duke out for a test run before christmas wrapping and it appears to have a problem. I did the outside oiling as instucted. After one hour running forwards on DC it starts and stops nice and slow with eight carriages on, but under power it surges and if power is increased above 2/3 there is a loud screech like a slack fan belt. In reverse it starts nicely slowly but anything over 1/3 power and it screeches. I have disconnected and reconnected the driveshaft, but I fear it may be the gearbox skipping. Any ideas? I would rather get on with giving it the Dr Al treatment than send it back to Santa.

I wasn't aware the roof step was deliberate, but I understand the obvious logic. I keep all my nastiest curves inside tunnels, so I had not throught through the neccesary compromise. It is also true that I dismissed another recent BR standard class because of the horrendous loco-tender gap, so Dapol's thinking was good.

Thanks very much for the pics, I agree it looks much better than the various 'official' images, especially this Golden Arrow version. I now consider myself tipped-over. Is it running well?

I was planning to snap one of these up, but does anyone have any further running-in reports. I am frankly a little concerned about the need to disassemble, oil, reassemble then paint the silver motion and grey wheels on an engine they are asking 120 pounds for. The engine-tender gap looks nicely tight, but the height of the tender where it meets the cab roof could be an issue. Does anyone have pics from the rear or above, preferably sitting on a layout? I just need to be tipped over the edge!