New arrival at Patio Rails, Operations day number 2

I hadn't intended to get another locomotive so soon.  (The DCC ready Stainz (Analogue) that I got a couple of weeks ago was an ebay option that came up, and is some long term planning.  It remains to be seen if it send it away for chipping or let my nerdy chum get his itchy fingers on it).

However, Glendale Junction got a second hand Zillertalbahn (The Austrian narrow gauge railway) loco number 2 in that was already chipped for digital.   This would match my dining car (from the Austrian State railways too), and was probably amongst the biggest loco that would fit sensibly on my track, given that I only have only a small layout with radius 1 curves.  I'd also seen a very similar grey coloured loco on my Sunday G Scale Society garden visit.  So, it was going to be distinctive and fitted in (in my broad theme concept), and was at a competitive price (although I'm still learning the ropes on this) on an item no longer in the current catalogue.  So, it was out with the plastic again and a couple of days later I had it.

And I'm very pleased with it.  Today (Saturday) was operations day number 2, putting into practice lessons learned from the first day.  In between I bought a new spirit level, and the patio slopes I calculate at 2-3% down - which is why the locos aren't so keen to go up it, and the S curve just before the gradient was killing the little 0-4-0T with a load of wagons/coaches.  The new one is an 0-6-2T, and I don't know if all six wheels are driven, but it certainly has got more "ooomph" in the engine.  Track redesign moved the "goods yard" to the far side of the patio from a health and safety viewpoint, and I put in a curve and then straight for the uphill bit, rather than the S bend and then straight that we had had previously.  The 0-4-0T still doesn't like the top of the slope where it does 90 degrees (three radius 1 curves for the LGB fans out there) turning. I don't know if putting curve-small straight-curve-small straight-curve will soften this or not (in hillwalking, walking across a slope is always easier than going straight up).  New recruit to Patio Rails will take at least 3 coaches/wagons up the incline without problem!

So, here's a video of the new recruit in action (I'm on a steep learning curve with the movie editing software too......).

The two wagons are Cardinal beer wagons that will belong to the "yellow" depot but more on this later. 

Chris