I spent a satisfactory afternoon tweaking 'Bethesda Sidings', now that all the track is laid and the layout is fully wired up and operational.
A couple of snags on two of the points were attended to and several locos tested on the layout.
Predictably, the Dapol B4 (on loan from BR to the Vale of Radnor Light Railway) ran superbly, it's one of the best running RTR locos I've ever had. Pleasingly, the Dean Goods ran well and will now be weathered and put into service, in due course.
Both my Mainline/Bachmann panniers have been tested before and also pleasingly, my Bachmann 64XX, that is to be converted to a 74XX, has also turned out to be a rather sweet and controllable runner, after having had quite a lot of running-in.
Ex-LNER J72 'Jennifer', who's refurbishment featured in some of my blog posts a few months ago, needed some of her pick-ups tweaking, but is now running nicely again. I may yet fit a flywheel in her, there's plenty of room.
While all this was going on, the loco that was supposed to be one of the key performers - the Hattons/DJM 14XX - was having some further running-in on the rolling road. To my surprise, it's almost good enough and controllable enough at slow speed, to be considered for the role I had originally envisaged for it - as 1420, working the Prestigne and Kington goods, now extended to Bethesda yard. I think I'll need to tweak the pick-ups, as that seems to be a slight concern, but I'm hoping that I won't have to rip the innards our and substitute an etched chassis. I may now be able to use that chassis kit on the spare Airfix body that I have.
The one loco that failed testing (which I knew it would), was my 22XX. This is because the tender wheels that I fitted several years ago, to replace the old Mainline ones, are running in the original Mainline axleboxes. This doesn't give enough lateral movement of the axles when passing over one of the points and it derails. What is needed is a replacement etched tender chassis kit, which will provide a little more flexibility.