Oh what fun we've had,,, the arctic weather put paid to the first caravan weekend of the season down at my favourite nuclear power station at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast.
Not that I have a thing about caravan sites near power stations, but, this one is a bit special as it is in a pub car park which basically means everyone is happy, the dog is only 50 yards from one of her favourite beaches where she can run riot for miles, I am 20 yards from one of the nicest pints of Adnam's Best Bitter in East Anglia and if we get bored we can always wander into Leiston to the Garrett Museum where they used to make traction engines,, what more could you want!!!
So instead the D9 has had some serious attention and I can proudly announce that we have definitely got past the half way stage and now have a locomotive which works and is even powerful enough to pull along it's very own tender which is also coupled to it at the obligatory 9 inches, and even if I say so myself it really is starting to look like a half decent model of one of Mr Robinsons finest edwardian creations.
It is very easy to "knock" the computer age and all this technology which to be quite frank I don't really understand, but, during the phase of starting to build the tender I quite rapidly hit a knowledge gap on how certain aspects of the tenders were actually built, but not for long, before you could say "James Ridell casts his spell" a very knowledgeable nucleus of friends on the LNER Encyclopedia forum were sending me drawings and photo's of the real thing,,,, that reminded me of how lucky we are to live in this technological wonderland, that we don't understand, but even so you can benefit from it.
Perhaps the Webbens is right after all,,,, bleep, squeek and high pitch whinings to your hearts content is the way forward.
Talking of which "the Webbens" and "Westerner" that well known "Welsh flockist" of this manor will be in evidence at the Barrow Hill Steam Extravaganza Sept 28th & 29th just in case you forget, and all things being equal, and in my experience they very rarely are, the D9 should be making it's first public appearance!!
Only 6 months to go before this one and my hit list is growing by the day,,, not only on the layout but on the D9, Valour, C13, F2, and for the LMS afficianado's amongst us the L&Y Highflyer Atlantic and Fowler tank, with limousine cab, ha ha I've been building that for the best part of 10 years as well and it wasn't until I occasioned upon my old pal Bob Meanley of Vintage Trains Ltd that I realised I was even building one of the famous limo cabs,,,, thats technology for you again,,,, you bump into each others ether space and the world improves quite quickly.
You've got to make it to Barrow Hill Mr Bob,,, not so you can offer copious quantities of constructive comment but it must be humpty odd years since we smiled at each other through the bottom of a pint pot, and believe me I know from past experiences that there will be a lot of that going on at Barrow Hill.
What a wonderul hobby this is!!!
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