An Avalon Arrival

As mentioned a couple of months ago in O9 Archaeology, the revived 7mmNGA sales operation under  has recently turned up several interesting O9 items of late and it has provided an opportunity to acquire a few older commercial O9 models that are no longer in production. With a little Christmas money to spend I picked up another couple of items in early January, including another unopened Owen Ryder kit, this time the Heywood open wagon. Yes, other models are now available of this but I never got around to buying one from Howard Martin when the range was revived...

Since Howard's passing I've felt a small pang of guilt that I actually do not have anything in my collection that truly reflected the Avalon Line range so the opportunity to purchase a ALD2-9 diesel was also taken. It is actually a built and painted example very close in appearance to the one illustrated on the old Black Dog Mining website but differs in small details, including the coupler position. 

I therefore believe that this may actually have been finished by Steve Bennett. It has clearly never had a chassis fitted as the paint underneath shows no signs of wear. In fact an attempt to pose it on a motor-less Farish 08 chassis failed as it was too tight a fit! I am looking at the options to power it, the obvious low-cost way (as the source is in stock) would be to make some careful adjustments underneath to take a Kato 'core' and accept that the wheelbase won't match the axleboxes, but that it won't be too obvious.

An alternative would be to look at repowering the 08 chassis with a Tramfabriek motor but I have some qualms about having a 6-coupled chassis hidden away under there. To my surprise the 08 chassis has been propelled around the 5" curves of 'odsock Corner without any issue. However, a further alternative in the form of a Halling motor unit has been suggested by members of the NGRM Online Forum so that will also be investigated.

Colin