Today at Almondell, 16/4/23, further testing was carried out on the large Appin locomotive. It must be the largest locomotive yet to run on the tracks at Almondell. And what a monster it is. I am sure that all of the members present were very impressed with the work carried out by Dan Coupe with his dedicated work in restoring the locomotive over many months. The loco has been out of service for many years and this was quite a time consuming and challenging task.
It does look very impressive on the track and powerful too. Today’s task was to give the locomotive a good test and under load with the passenger coaches loaded with happy passengers. To make the loco work hard, all of the rolling stock was used. This did fill the entire length of the platform.
A nice touch was added with the flags at the edges of the 25″ wide buffer beam. The cab detail is superb.
Dan has mastered the controls of the loco and with the train full of passengers it climbed the hill out of the station up and through the tunnel effortlessly.
I am sure that the public will be fascinated with this loco. It has a bell behind the chimney and also a loud chime whistle. The cab views above, show the working Westinghouse Pump and the other shows a view from the cab towards the road bridge. More importantly, it sounds and looks great.
A very successful day.
