I went to run the Impressionist model of a Stanier Mogul today at the Sydney Live Steam Locomotive Society .

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The engine  performed very well indeed.

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This is my “Dyak” – a freelance design which looks most like a Stanier Mogul in my view (even though the model design actaully PRE-dates the prototype by a few years! – hauling me up an incline of about 1in 60.

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It was a wet day, with lots of wheelslip, but even despite this the engine performed well..

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This was a tremendous moment for me – proof that the engne which I bought based on a comnbination of appearances and a “hunch” has proved to be a good buy.  Just as well considering it cost me $2,500 all up .

The Sydney Live Steam locomotive Society site in Ryde has a circular run of about 400m, which is superb.

See the YouTube video:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n2NSUETiIA

They let me have a go on a locomotive known to them first, I suspect to check out that I was able to follow their instructions, so some of the above video shows me running an LBSCR “Atlantic”. They then let me go solo with my “Impressionist Stanier Mogul”, and the first time around I got the whole way up their 100m long 1/60 bank, albeit with wheelslip, etc., without stopping. On a rainy day that was a mark of success apparently. Trouble is, I couldn’t repeat the feat! The loco. went very well though, and others more expert than I said that it was as “sweet” loco., and I had done very well when I bought it.
Their site has three gauges – 2½, 3½ and 5 inch gauges, interlaced and crossing over each other. Very cleverly arranged. We were using the elevated 2½ and 3½ inch tracks (these engines can only really be used to pull real passengers on elevated track) and some of the loco.s on the video are 3½ inch models.