NARROW GAUGE EFFICIENCY COMPETITION 2009

The Narrow Gauge Efficiency Competition was held this year at the track site of the Erewash Valley Model Engineering Society a few miles north of Borrowash in Derbyshire. The club has done a lot of work in recent years including  the construction of a brand new ground level track and the installation of a generator, the club having no mains electricity or water supplies.  Water is collected from the clubhouse roof, and leaves boilers completely free of lime scale after years of steaming!

 

The date this year was moved from the traditional end of June to the beginning, which meant that your editor was very disappointed to be unable to attend, having already booked a trip to Alaska on the assumption that the event would be conducted at the usual time. However, the host club has come to the rescue and we are grateful to Bill Morrison, newsletter editor of the host club, for permission to use material from his newsletter and for the supply of colour photographs. 

 

Winner of the competition was Neil Mortimer for the second year running, and we were pleased to see that the suggestion in our report of last year's event that he might try the big IMLEC  was in fact taken up, and he won that too, also with his Polly 3, at Bristol!  We don't have a picture of him this year unfortunately.  Neil won with a reported efficiency figure of 0.345%, an exceedingly low figure for the event and of course all the other results were ranged below that down to 0.04%.  Neil achieved 1.45% last year.  One wonders what gave rise to such low figures, and one hopes that the results were at least internally consistent, even if out of line with expectations.  We understand that the Birmingham dynamomoter car was used, and that the weather was fine.  

 

 

 Dave Roberts drives his 5" gauge Beyer Peacock 0-6-2 loco of the La Guarera Y Caracas Railway of Venezuela.

 

 

David Dick's Sweet Pea 'Millhouse' rounds Storehouse Curve.

 

FAJ Colin begins his run behind his Tich/Juliet hybrid.

 

 IMLEC competitor Brian Holland gallops up the 1 in 200 straight hauling  21 loaded slate trucks.

 

 

Polly model 'Orenstein and Koppel' demonstrator 'Caraline' on the G.L. track, Mike Shaw at the regulator.

 

 Brian Remnant leaves Erewash H.L. with his yellow Sweet Pea at the start of his run. 

 

 

N.A.M.E. NARROW GAUGE IMLEC 2009
 
Saturday  30th May 
Run No. Engine Driver Club Distance Travelled (Feet) Laps Run Work Done (Ft/lbs) Fuel Used (ounces) Efficiency  (%)  * Position
1 Metre Maid Brian Holland Oxford MEC 6282 11 13780 40 0.052 15
2 Modified Sweet Pea Brian Remnant Romney Marsh 12555 22 38027 22 0.263 2
3 0-4-0 5"G Tich/Juliet Hybrid FAJ Collins Rochdale 9703 17 8010 22 0.055 14
4 Sweet Pea Tim Jenkins Southport MES 9147 16 16357 27 0.092 9
5 Sweet Pea Marcus Peel Southport MES 8571 15 17503 15 0.178 4
6 Sweet Pea Dave Dick Urmston 9706 17 13757 52 0.04 16
7 Beyer Peacock    0-6-2 Dave Roberts Urmston 10853 19 32347 32 0.154 6
8 Polly 3 Neil Mortimer Ickenham & District 12005 21 31669 14 0.345 1
9 Sweet Pea John Ollerenshaw Erewash Valley 6856 12 12336 16 0.117 7
Sunday 31st May
10 Conway Frances Mayall Bracknell 10277 18 7936 19 0.064 12
11 Conway John Chambers Erewash Valley 9703 17 7273 11 0.101 8
12 Alice Class Hunslet Joe Holdsworth Wrexham 10280 18 31525 56 0.086 10
13 Sentinel Mike Barnett North Staffs. 10278 18 23959 14 0.261 3
14 Dolgoch Terry Vaughn Wrexham 4206 7 - - DNF 17
15 Polly 3 James Tilbury Urmston 10284 18 25377 23 0.168 5
16 Modified Sweet Pea Roy Holt Rochdale 6289 11 12948 24 0.082 11
17 Conway Marcus Peel Southport MES 8574 15 7360 20 0.056 13
* Calculated on an assumed calorific value of coal of 13500 BTU/lb.

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