Last Updated 23rd February, 2008
Ordered by the company in anticipation of increased traffic following the opening of the harbour branch, this 0-6-2 tank locomotive was purchased from Manning Wardle and co. in 1914. Popular with the crews it provided the mainstay of the motive power in the last days of the railway.
My model is modified from Pearse Locomotives No.178, an early Europa, purchased second hand from a modeller in Edinburgh. On arrival in Suffolk, the model was in good condition but will receive a complete overhaul including replacement of all the "O" rings before the start of conversion.
We first ran the loco on a simple circuit of track on the grass just to see how it went and I was very pleased. There were a few steam leaks aroud the cylinder and smoke box but pressure soon reached 25lbs, the radio control lever was gently eased to one side and we were off!
At this point we had no 45mm gauge rolling stock to haul but William and I took tuns controlling the loco forwards and backwards round the track. The run lasted about 20 minutes before the gas ran out.
I found this loco was very different to fire compared to my previous experiecnces of Roundhouse loco's. There is an overflow pipe on the boiler backhead which is left open whilst steam is raised so that the water in the boiler is at the correct level, I overfilled the boiler by a fair amount first time!
I was pleasantly surprised to find out a little of the history of this locomotive when I first contacted Pearce Locomotives in order to discuss an overhaul, carrying No. 178, the loco was built in 1995.
Pearse set me a load of O rings in labelled bags so that I knew where they needed to go, they also sent new gaskets for the cylinder covers. The letter accompanying the O rings from Mike Teece ran through the procedure for dismantling the locomotive so I proceeded carefully, working on one side of the loco at a time.
Having enlarged the drawings of No.4 found in "The Southwold Railway" by Taylor and Tonks, I made up a body shell of card using old cereal packets to see how the modified loco would look.
One of the main changes to the chassis if the Europa is the addition of a trailing pony truck, changing the 0-6-0 into an 0-6-2. To do this I first had to relocate the radio control receiver batteries from their original position between the frames under the cab.