Moreton Pit Light Railway

Well, I blame Father Christmas for the next article. He delivered a ‘Tiny’ kit to the Financial Director of the MPLR and this is what happened…

To begin; the Locolines kits are made from cardboard. Yes cardboard, but before you run away with the idea that that means flimsy wobbly toys consider this, back in the dark ages of this hobby, cardboard engines and rolling stock were a lot more common than they are today. They are light, realisitic looking and CHEAP! The Locolines kits are very heavy duty indeed, the instructions are clear and simple and kit bashing them is a doddle and great fun. Here is what the Financial Controller (FC) did with hers…

To begin at the beginning, the chassis is a ‘deluxe’ kit fro IP Engineering. Superb quality, four wheel drive and so on. The FC nearly threw this up the garden but she did get the hang of ‘quartering’ eventually 🙂 Added to this is an IP speed controller. The part finished kit is bolted in three places onto the chassis. Then the fun started. FC thought that as supplied the Locolines Tiny cab looked a bit big, so she decided to shorten it! This meant lengthening the boiler with a length of plastic drain pipe and while this was going on she discovered that a lid from a jar of spices fitted perfectly and made a really good smoke box door. See below…

The two 9v batteries are fitted in the boiler. Neat eh!.

Not content with that, the FC had the bright idea of fitting a bulb and red crinkly paper into the firebox so that when the motor is turned on the coal lights up…

Then she added real coal all over the place…

and some rather nice rivet detail on the smoke box and buffer beams…

Still not fed up with bashing the Locolines kit, she then had the idea of ‘working’ pistons and valve gear. She nagged the workshop staff until they produced this…

… but it was worth it to see the smile on her face!

So, all in all, after lots of fun, tears, trial and error and problem solving we end up with a little loco that cost well under £100, looks the part, taught all of us a lot and is something our 16mm garden railway forebears would have approved of!

Oh, then she added a sound module, so ‘Noel’ chuffs and hisses as he chugs around.

All that now remains is to add hand rails, numbers and so on and the MPLR has it’s latest loco ready to go.