The delivery man

 And there we have it. 'Caol', AKA The Scottish, delivered in crate form to the RM office. You may have got the impression that I'm glad to get rid of it, and that would be more or less accurate. Not though because it was a bad idea, but more that it has been plagued by delays and supply issues from the get go which has cause no small amount of hair-pulling here. I would consider doing this again with the research knowledge gained. However, I would definitely drop the period back to transition or Blue-Sectorisation mostly to increase the operation. The green would be favourite with 26 and 27s, though the later period would be an easy entry with the Rhiw stock as a base. It's not going to happen though. Caol will appear in RM from the late Autumn in the now usual serial format.

Looking forward; there are discussions afoot about something new. Hold onto your hats, it could be a choppy trip....

A new Terrier

 I picked this Mk1 Hornby-badged Terrier up a couple of months ago off of Marketplace from a chap down the road for the princely sum of £25. He assured me it ran; which it did... after a fashion. Visuals suggested that the wheels could be the culprit; or rather the muck on the wheels. I decided on a full strip-down and service. These models are dead easy to work on and I finished the job in under 30 minutes. The treads were fibre-brushed to a shine as were the front wiper pick-ups. The drive train was totally dried up; I guessed an age of around 20 years old and it had obviously never been touched, so motor bearings oiled, gears greased, chassis bearing faces cleaned, wheelsets back in and a drop of oil . 

A run without the body looked hopeful and with the whole thing back together and up to weight she purrs along. Do I need another Terrier? No really, but at that price she's a good spare chassis for the existing pair, or I may get around to a full detail.

Svanda at Bredgar

 

 Svanda appeared yesterday at what its essentially the final exhibition. This is due to there being nothing else in the book. Really friendly show within the Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway site, and organised by Kerry and Kevin of Invicta Models.

The layouts are not the main attraction, sharing the attention with the main railway and a brace of other steam power on the day. This means that the audience is high on the family scale and quite transient. This means that you don't really get an exhibition 'buzz', but you do get to put the hobby in front of people who are just out for the day. We did this last year and I'll repeat my comment from then - it's clean. No piles of 'we'll get around to that later' scrap, and areas full of sleepers and rusty rail. This is Pro with a capital P. Well worth a visit and just off the M20 Jct 8.