Page template does not pull new category

This site uses an alternative page template (page-alt) that pulls one category onto one page. I need to get it now to pull a new category onto a new page. It only partly works.

The page-alt template page uses Custom Fields “pull-category” for this page perfectly:
http://paintingthecanvas.com/painting-the-canvas/

All posts using the category of ‘painting the canvas’ get pulled to the page also called ‘painting the canvas’.

When I made some test posts using a new category of ‘my new york palette’ so that a new page called ‘new york palette’ would also pull just that category, I saw that the page pulled in the name and a link to an archives page, but didn’t show thumbnails or excerpts and post links– like it does for painting the canvas category.

The code for the alt-page template doesn’t seem to favor the painting the canvas category, so I can’t figure out why it works for one category but not the new one.

<div id="content-container">
			<div id="content" role="main">

				<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

					<?php get_template_part( 'content', 'page' ); ?>

				<?php endwhile; // end of the loop. ?>

				<hr>

				<div class="cat-list-left">

					<?php
						// Get the category name from custom field
						$rb_cat = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'pull-category', true);

					    // Get the ID of a given category
					    $category_id = get_cat_ID( $rb_cat );

					    // Get the URL of this category
					    $category_link = get_category_link( $category_id );
					?>

					<!-- Print a link to this category -->
					<h1>Posts from
						<a href="<?php echo esc_url( $category_link ); ?>" title="<?php echo $rb_cat; ?>"><?php echo $rb_cat; ?></a>
					</h1>

					<?php

					// The Query
					query_posts( array ( 'category_name' => $rb_cat, 'posts_per_page' => -1 ) );

					echo '<ul class="post-cat">';

					// The Loop
					while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

					<li>

						<?php if( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?>

						<div class="cat-thumbnail">
							<?php
								the_post_thumbnail();
							?>
						</div>
						<?php } ?>

						<a href="<?php echo the_permalink(); ?>">
							<?php the_title(); ?>
						</a> 

						<div class="index-name-date cat-meta">
							By <?php the_author(); ?> on <?php the_date(); ?>
						</div>

						<div class="content-cat">

						<?php the_excerpt(); ?>

						</div>

						<div class="more-link">

							<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">Read more</a>

						</div>

						<div class="clearme"></div>

					</li>
					<?php
						// the_excerpt();
						// echo ' <p class="postinfo">Written by: ';
						// the_author_posts_link();
						// echo 'Posted on '
						// the_date();
						// echo 'Categories: '
						// the_category(', ');
						// echo '</p>'

					endwhile;
					echo '</ul>';

					// Reset Query
					wp_reset_query(); ?>

				</div>

Any help much much much appreciated!