Reply To: Lister Train Truck

[jim-beacon]

The Lister in the first picture belongs to Graham Feldwick, and is based at Twyford waterworks, it is quite an early one, with a 600cc JAP petrol engine, There are also two later Listers at Twyford, with Lister diesel engines.
I have driven all three, and the petrol one is by far the most difficult, it is prone to running away on gentle downward gradients, as it is quite high geared, and very light – omly about 1 ton. You need to keep a hand on the brake wheel at all times, and be very careful when changing gear (they have two forward and two reverse gears). The diesels are considerably heavier, and much easier to drive – the newest (early 60s) even has the luxury of electric start!
Graham’s two Listers can sometimes be seen at Amberly for special events.
There are a number of other narrow gauge locos at Twyford, including 3 Motorail angines, a Ruston (new to the war office), and a special built by a brickworks for shunting brick waggons into kilns (it is battery powered, and was converted to radion control in its later life).
Some of the engines (the three Listers) make an appearance at most of our open days, but the Motorails and the Ruston are generally only seen at our special industrial railways day (next one is June 1st 2014)