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It also makes even a stationary engine come alive, it's the real thing !

Much appreciated, thanks.

Hi Wolfgang, it's good to here from you again. As for the video although I'm not very good at filming, Garratts will always look great in action. Many thanks and best wishes Ralph

Hi Henry, another summer has past and to me it's when the railway's buildings have to be brought in. But that doesn't rule out the odd sunny spell and I'll try and squeeze in another breakfast video for you when the opportunity arises. Best wishes, Ralph

The flail mower was made by Twose and it has a 2 metre wide cut ( 6ft 6inches ) and weighs just under one ton. The MF 135 tractor came as new with a MF 165 diesel engine which produced 65 hp. It was a main dealer option in the UK for Hop growers which also meant that it came with a semi narrow back axle. With 10 inch wide rear tyres it is only 4ft 6 inches wide and thus can work between the hop rows. A plus point is that with 2ft wide grass tyres fitted, it is still not over width for most other work. The engine is a Perkins 4203 four cylinder version of the Perkins 3152 that is fitted to UK MF135 s. It has very high torque and a long stroke and is very reliable, quite happy to run all day long running flat out working a 1.5 metre Van Dale woodland mulcher through an additional creep box. The Perkins 4203 was also available as a road going commercial vehicle engine. I put one into my 1961 Landrover series 2, it was a much better alternative engine, geared up it would do 37 mpg.

​@megapowerchannelsunc Well I'll start with the latter comment about the Series 2... amazed at the MPG with the engine conversion. I have a 2.25l diesel Series 3 and it is struggling these days. Appreciate the gen with regards to the MF 135. I'm on the hunt for a tractor that has the capability to run a wider cutter (large area), but there are sections that are tight, so a smaller tractor is needed. Appreciate the simplicity of the older, and lack of electronic tractors. Have you had to perform any major maintenance on the MF? P.s. I'm also UK based (Wales). Thanks.

@@97darosasg3 Regarding the Series 2 and it's Perkins engine, one has to acknowledge that a golden age has come to an end. In the mid 1970s there was a lack of regulations which today would involve lots of restrictions. That apart, then there was a lot of cheap engines available. A secondhand 4203 taken from a Commer Walkthrough at £100 and a Philips joining ring for not much more. I knew two other Series 2s that had been converted and they were both reported to do 37 mpg once they had been geared up with Range rover diffs. I once came back at night from Scotland towing a dive boat. After filling up the 8 gallon tank at Arden by Loch Lomond I reached Birdlip six hours later on the A417 staying in top gear with overdrive engaged the whole way even over Shap. Ear muffs were a must ! In town traffic, right up to third gear the throttle wasn't needed. Never broke a half shaft. As for the MF135, it does have some issues, the much shorter radiator is one, leading us to fit an 8 bladed fan and a Modine marine water cooled system for the engine oil. The pto is on the low side which means setting the flail up so that the drive shaft is kept as straight as possible for the UJs. Surprisingly the rear linkage lifts the heavy grass flail with no trouble. I know a local who used to have a Lamborghini narrow vineyard tractor that ran a 78hp non turbo engine. It would have been a better option for us. My Land rover 90 has a Mazda 3.5 litre four cylinder licence built version of the Perkins 4 185 which was fitted 34 yrs ago. Apart from tappet adjustment and filters it has never needed anything done to it. I wish I still had the Series 2 though.

@megapowerchannelsunc Many thanks for the comprehensive response! Unfortunately in the two weeks to respond I managed to break a half shaft... Now up and running again after getting the hands dirty thankfully. Interesting about the 135, some food for thought! :)

Many thanks, I'm glad that you enjoyed it

All of the trains featured in the video belong to visitors attending the G Scale Open day at my railway. There was a great range of locos running, all I had to do was film them going round the layout.

Hi Wolfgang, thank you for your kind comments. I do think the garden railway comes across better when viewed on a video. Up close it does look to me a bit rough and ready. I try my best at videoing, but when I'm also controlling a loco's RC at the same time, things can go wrong. A friend of mine makes some excellent model railway videos. Check out : Paul RhB on UA-cam. His last video features last Saturday's G Scale Open day on my railway. Best wishes Ralph

Many thanks, does Portugal still run the wide gauge 5ft 6inch rail system ? I've always thought it unusual, its a pity it didn't become universal

@@megapowerchannelsunc in Portugal, we have the 1,668 mm Iberian gauge.

Many thanks Wolfgang, I'd agree with your sentiments regarding the locomotive and train, which make for easy driving. The video is of poor quality though, the camera lens has been damaged by oily condensates resulting in bad light refractions when filming anywhere close to the sun. A new camera would cost lots ! Still it's only fun running trains, and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Hi Fabrizio, it's good to hear from you. I hope that your weather has been better than ours and you have been running many trains. Cheers Ralph

@@megapowerchannelsunc Hi Ralph, the weather is very bad at moment and my layout is out of service! Cheers Fabrizio

@@fabrizioviscardi40 Hi Fabrizio, we must be sharing the same bad weather. We have had almost constant rain for the last nine months with many storms and fallen trees. I hope that you manage to repair your layout, cheers Ralph

@@megapowerchannelsunc Hi Ralph, at moment the weather is not so good here too, at moment I do not repair my layout because there are a lot of problems.....Now I play with two diorama for stem and electric locomotives with really working aerial catenary! Cheers my friend Fabrizio

Hi Pete, you are absolutely correct about the air cleaner. The Massey does a lot of hard work carrying out woodland mulching. An oil bath air cleaner will get choked solid vey quickly. Some might say that a dry air cleaner is greener and cheaper, needing only an occasional blow out. Ordinarily I wouldn't video one of our old classic tractors on such a light job, I just needed some practice on Clip champ. The tractor already has a non standard Perkins 4203 engine, a semi narrow back axle and a crawler range gearbox, all optional extras when new from the Kent main dealers for the Hop farms in that area. We fitted a pair of series running Modine oil coolers which are water cooled and plumbed into the main water cooling system, which is far more effective when running at slow speeds and dusty conditions. You can spot them on the lower right hand side when facing forward. So the tractor isn't exactly very standard !

Hi Mike, they are Alliance Flotation 328 8plys. Tyre size is 600/55--22.5 The rims are from GKN. Our local agricultural tyre fitters recommended them, when we asked about the rims, he said that was no problem, GKN would make them to fit. All they wanted was the offset measurement so as to allow enough inside clearance, bearing in mind the Massey has a semi narrow rear axle. Like our other Alliance tyres, they last for years and don't perish.

@@megapowerchannelsunc thanks, I have some 700's off the front of my John Deere wide set that I've had some adaptor plates made for but wondered if they might be to wide but having seen yours I'm keen to get them on. Thanks

Well spotted, I never edit out derailments, but this one was a mystery. Why did it happen ? A foreign object on the track would have affected the coaches ahead and the chopper couplings swung freely.

Hi Wolfgang, thanks for kind comments, the best praise is from those who have built and operate their own garden railways. The video wasn't one of my best, the morning sun was causing light refractions if the camera was any near pointing towards towards it. My old pocket Panasonic TZ8's lens has got too close to steam plumes and needs replacing. I have two better videos coming of the Heidi taken when she was running during the afternoon which you might enjoy. Cheers Ralph

I'm glad you enjoyed it. The older RCs were badly affected by chicken wire. Even today on the CMR some RCs loose contact with an engine in the tunnels or behind a mountain.

Hi Wolfgang, this weekend should bring us 23 degrees and hopefully we will run some engines in what will be the last of the summer. I hope you will be running engines as well, best wishes Ralph

Hi Fabrizio, thanks for the like. I hope that you are keeping well, Cheers Ralph

Hi dear Ralph, I am fine at momente and I hope so for you, thanks for posting, cheers Fabrizio@@megapowerchannelsunc

I looked it up, well done. Your track is very impressive. A 18inch WW1 railgun survives here in the UK although it is minus its bogies. During WW2 it was stationed near Dover being housed in a tunnel when not in use. It only had a range of 15 miles so it couldn't take on the German heavy gun batteries which could hit Dover. But if a German invasion had occurred the 18 inch gun would have been put to use. The aiming of the gun was simply by firing just out of the tunnel where the track was in a deep curved cutting and going forwards or backwards changed the aim. Apparently after three or four rounds the track needed reballasting.

Hello Henry, I agree with you. The total time taken to plough the cable underground must have only been 7 minutes. But it took 3 or 4 days of preparation and timing the operation to fit in with the right weather and ground conditions. We originally constructed the mole plough about 45 years ago and we used it to install amoured co--axiel lamp post wire. Job done we then sold it. All these years later we borrowed it back, its new owners had replaced the blade with a longer upright one ( our blade inclined forwards which kept it in the ground ). Our internet speed is now much higher ! and hopefully we wont loose the landline during really wet periods. After micro soft discontinued their video editor I have been trying clipchamp. I always click on the highest resolution but the videos appear to have very Low Definition, and the background jerky when following a moving train. Perhaps I've just got old and not noticed it until now. Best wishes Ralph

That must have been a shocking experience ! -Sorry but It must have livened the old Fordson up as well as you. The plough must have been a hell of an earth. All we had to avoid was an underground 5 inch water main, I've seen one excavate a trench 200yds long across a corn field after a loaded combine harvester fractured it.

Hi Wolfgang, thanks, but I haven't got the hang of the clipchamp video editor yet and the Wessex Narrow Gauge group had never visited before so I had no idea of what they would be running. I understand that the great military models were sourced from Germany. I thought that the large turntable provided an ideal traversing mechanism for the seige guns.