On Saturday 16 september the locomotive was out of the workshop and loaded into the car, for her maiden trip at our club track at Breda (www.stoomgroepzuid.nl) . After almost 11 years of designing and building the loco was taken to the track for the first time.
On the hydraulic lift, ready to load in the car.
At the track the loco was prepared for steaming.
After the boiler was filled with water, the fire was lit and the new electric blower put to work.
The filling plug (hidden under the sand dome), makes is much more comfortable to fill the boiler. On my other 3½" and 5" gauge locomotives this is done with the hand pump, what makes it a much more labourers job.
It takes about 25 minutes to get the boiler to working pressure (90 psi or 6 bar) and then about 5,5 liter of water is heated, during this time the loco could be greased. There are a lot of points to oil and because this is the first time the loco will run under its own steam, we used plenty of oil.
Once the boiler pressure was reached and the safety valves started to lift, the locomotive was driven on the turning table and main track.
After a final check Martin took the loco for her first lap ever under her own steam. We had to use our 5" gauge driving trolley. The wagons for this loco have yet to be build.
Everything seemed to work as is should and it got the ok from the driver.
The first two laps the loco was a bit 'stiff'' and did not run easily. This was due to the heavy steam oil, still in the cylinders from the last test in the garden. After that test, we flooded the cylinders with oil to prevent rust to set in. This was more than a month ago and this oil took some time to get 'fluid' again.
After that the loco ran very smoothly and was able to run on a steam chest pressure of only a 0.5 bar.
After a few more laps and this first initial test, the boiler was blow down and the loco was left to cool down.
Ready for the next run, the next day at our open day at Stoomgroep Zuid. We used a lighter oil for injecting into the cylinders after the run, to prevent corrosion. This is done by feeding oil through the exhaust pipe and then pushing the engine over the rails. The reverser is then set in the opposite direction in which the loco is moved. This way the oil is sucked into the steam chest and cylinders. When oil, instead of water, is coming out of the cylinder draincocks you know that there is enough oil in the steam engines.
On Sunday 17 september we had our annual open day at our model engineer society Stoomgroep Zuid (Breda the Netherlands)
I was able to borrow a real 7¼" driving truck from one of our club members for this event and the loco was put into service almost the whole day.
As Bob Symes stated in his television program "Model World" of the '70ties: "it's nice to drive your own loco" . How right he was!
A busy day at our track.
Martin explained the function of the boiler fittings, reverser and the general working of the locomotive.
The loco was kept in steam for the most part of the day; the lovely weather helped of course.
The boiler is easy to fire and seems (we only had a light load behind the loco) keeps up steam pressure without any problem.
A lap at our club track.
Making a driving truck, the steam pump and finishing the details as lamps etc. are the next step.