A fabulous day at Stoke Bruerne, despite no model layouts being on show unlike the year previous, but the discussion between some of the SMJ members who attended was as is with the forum web page, facininating as always.
I was taken in by the SMJ (or earlier edition) rule book pertaining to "no loco's to be run bunker first..." which seems to indicate that the quality of the SMJ trackbed was not too clever at the best of times, relating this to my 'O' gauge loco of a Beyer Peacock 2-4-0, one has to watch the point work & track radii when running this model, the full size versions may not have ridden too well either.
The distance between centres between the pony wheels & 'First' driver seems to be the culprit, my model is heavily weighed down (& balanced) but how well the actual loco's performed on SMJ's track is another but arguable guess to the factors with this loco type being a choice for sale to the WD in WW1?