It's a nice video of a lovely engine and it's probably very unusual to see this kind of operation in 5".

However, to my mind I could easily have been watching a Gauge '3' loco running at any one of the G3 Society's GTG's in recent years. Coal-fired, spirit and gas-fired 2.5" engines have been running under R/C for many years now.

I believe one of the early pioneers of running 'LBSC' locomotives under Radio Control was Ralph Brewer who purchased a 'Fayette' (that he later converted to a form of LNER Atlantic) in the early 1980's. Ralph joined the 2.5" Association but wanted to run his loco in a "scenic setting" – so after experiments at his local MES (Fareham?) – Ralph built a railway in his garden. He used a Futba 2-channel setup and controlled the regulator, reverser and whistle. He considered the blower but decided against it.

The G3 Society was established in 1990 and there were certainly people running 2.5" engines in a 'scenic' setting before then but most of them were 'free-running'. These days R/C is probably pre-dominant at G3 GTG's, although free running engines are still operated. Most people drive using mainly the regulator and use the blower manually when the engines halts for coaling. Some gas-fired engines have a gas-flow control fitted too.

Regards,

IanT

PS Gauge '3' Society Members can access the original articles by Ralph Brewer (that were published in the G3 Newsletter) on the G3 website. If anyone else is particularly interested in Ralph's pioneering work – then please pm me and I will forward PDF copies to them.