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Radio control comes to the MPLR.

There are two types of flat. Flat that is flat enough and flat that is flat enough for 16mm scale steam loco’s. I quickly learnt that flat enough is not flat enough, if you see what I mean, when I tried connecting a heavy load to ‘Arthur’. He chugged off happily pulling about 2kgms until he came to an incline. He stopped, built up steam pressure and chugged off again – great. Until, that is, he came to a down gradient. At this point the poor little engine accelerated like a F1 car and his two wagons took off in a most spectacular way.

The only answer was to re-lay the MPLR (no chance) or fit radio control. Guess which solution was chosen.

Radio control gear was purchased from Howes Models, superb service I have to say, except that I forgot to order servos. After a slightly embarassing phone call the servos arrived. The Accucraft Mortimer (Arthur) has all the holes required for fitting RC already drilled. It just took a bit of fettling to get all the bits to fit. A bit of help from a fellow modeller and bobs yer uncle.

I must say that RC has its advantages, throttle up for gradients and so on, and I am sure it will be good as the railway develops with sidings, passing loops and so on. But a bit of me rather likes the ‘old fashioned’ method. Start the engine off, sit down with a beer and watch the little beastie trundle round. Ah, the good old days.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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