The Empire Loyalists amongst the membership of the Moseley Railway Trust have been busy, and as you can see in the photo, the passenger train looks rather splendid. Sadly, this sight has not been savoured by too many passengers today, but hopefully the lure of a steam loco will have the crowds flocking on Sunday and Monday. We're going to turn out the Joffre to work some of its first passenger turns on a normal operating day - and certainly the first time it's been the sole steam loco without the reassuring and ultra-reliable presence of Stanhope in the background. I'm sure it will be OK, because the CME says it will be. He knows that the Queen will be displeased if the train service is disrupted for any reason.Meanwhile, we have been having a gentle tinker with one of the more obscure members of the IC fleet. OK4588 is a Class MM Orenstein & Koppel. These tiny locos seem to have only been supplied to the UK market, and there is a theory that they may have been assembled in the UK from kits supplied from Germany. The assembly would have been done by O&K's UK agent, William Jones. OK4588 last worked at Cadeby more than ten years ago. After some minor tinkering and TLC, the engine was persuaded to start. It's a petrol, and (by definition) more than a tad temperamental. There's also something nasty in the fuel tank, described as POUP - Petrol Of Uncertain Provenance. But it does run, after a fashion, so there's nothing fundamentally wrong. It's just a question now of sorting the cosmetics and improving the operations. As ever, get in touch here.
