Autumn

The General Manager was reminded recently why it's never a good idea to lay garden railway track under deciduous trees.

It's the time of year when the battery fleet comes into its own. Consisting of three locomotives, battery power means that dirty track that hasn't been used for a while is less of a problem. The little ÖBB class 2092 diesel has on board batteries and can be switched between battery radio control and track power, making it a "really useful engine".

By contrast, 298.56, a U Class steam engine, simply has a switch to allow the power input to come from the track, in the conventional manner, or via the socket on the back of the locomotive. When operating under battery power, a van is attached, and the track contacts are isolated.

The third locomotive in the battery fleet is Corpet Louvet No.5. This locomotive has an on board battery pack and no longer has track pickups at all.

The two battery locomotives, and the van, all have a Brian Jones Mac5 controller on board which is ideal for this use. The radio control itself is the older style 40 MHz as these locomotives were converted before the advent of 2.4 GHz equipment.