Loco No. 1 - Marchlyn

This was the first Loco that the Meifford Light Railway aquired. OK, the first running loco; they also bought an Alice class Loco which was being re-built at the time, and still is!

This Fletcher Jennings 0-4-2 was intented to be used on the daily mixed goods and passenger trains to Llanfyllin, but it proved to be somewhat unreliable, so other locos were either purchased or loaned.

Reality

This was a first attempt at building a loco with an etched chassis. The body is the Peco Tallyllyn No.1 kit which uses the Branchlines chassis kit.

I learned a lot from this one and although the chassis was constructed square, and (after a second attempt), the coupling rods etc. moved pretty freely, it wasn't a great runner. It was happier travelling in reverse rather than forwards and the mechanism seemed a bit 'sticky'.

After some time in the 'works', the answer found although it wasn't at all obvious at first. Turned out that the piston rods were fractionally too long and were bottoming out in the pistons, but only just! That's why it ran, but somewhat jerkily - a bit of fettling sorted it out and it runs pretty sweetly now.