Mystery solved

The bizarre mystery of the failure of 143 during expong has been solved. I took the motor out and it was fine. We looked at the valve gear/quartering and all looked fine. So dad took it all apart and what had happened was a bit of sticky ballast had got into the gears in such a way that it was not visible but was stopping the gears rotating. Frustrating, but ultimately now sorted. I'm confident that by the next exhibition RD will have 3 operational ngg16s in red, blue and black. Those plus the two funkeys, merddin, k1 and a further 16 (109) part built will form the motive power. I have yet to decide what to do with the smaller less reliable stock such as Upnor and Conwy castles. Doubts also remain about the performance of russell and lyd (2-6-2s) on my tight curves. I will however look to bend the ears of the experts building bron hebog to see how their models perform and whether some adjustments could be made to aid running. I will probably run Russell with the whhr heritage train and sell Gelert (as its chassis picks up on just the one set if wheels!) and lyd will be hard to resist in proper southern livery. (that's NOT a dig at the interesting and clever if not really accurate current br lined black livery by the way).