And Engine 4 is...

Well we speculated what Engine #4 would be last month, in the end the latest engine to arrive at Eskalon was neither of the shunter options but instead... a Roco Rh 1099 electric locomotive!

Lights on

Now the nights are drawing in, we need the lights on.

Threading through the tree avenue

Growler moves through the tree avenue, it can get quite a close fit in places. Btw the oiling didn't work, Growler still growls, but i guess as long as he runs ok...

Time for a bit of oil

With Falcon developing a bit of a raspy growl when travelling in 1 direction i thought it was time i performed a bit of maintenance on the fleet and oiled the gears. Growler really needed the oil as it no longer growls now! The nickname will remain intact though. Unfortunately oiling Falcon doesn't seem to have solved its growl but it might just be a case of the oil needing to work its way in. Here is Growler on a post-oiling test, without the cover.

Wishlist 2015

2014 has been a good year for Eskalon, we've managed to iron out (most) of the operational problems and made good progress on scenery and building up stock. With the year now entering its final few months i thought it was time to plan what Eskalon needs to achieve in 2015. Maybe late next year we can revisit this list and see how much we've deviated from it...

• Another locomotive or two is planned though the layout is starting to fill up. Rotation of stock will be employed next year with locomotives and rolling stock spending time in storage.
• Scenery building will continue, the centre of the layout needs to be finished.
• Improving the appearance of the track is a must, making it look a bit less "train set".
• Adding an isolation section on one of the sidings to boost locomotive storage potential.
• Some more people... and road vehicles!

Plymouth hauls a coach!

To complete the proving trials of Plymouth with normal rolling stock and not the industrial waggons (i've wanted to remove from the layout) he set about trying to pull one of the 2 coaches. As the coach is rather heavy Plymouth did struggle a bit especially on the slightly up inclined sections of the layout but he did make a full circuit!

Waggon 5

Waggon 5 is an open one like Waggon 1, actually its very similar but is a different colour and has different markings. Its an older Liliput model i picked up of eBay. To celebrate its arrival Falcon took all of the layout's freight stock on a trip. Waggon 1 has left the layout now though to undergo some maintenance. Some glue got into the coupling mechanism when i was giving it its coal load earlier in the year so now its prone to derail whatever its connected to!