A neat solution of finest malt is what I really fancy right now but will have to make do with this instead. As a bit of light relief from head scratching and blowing up LEDs in pursuit of the perfect control panel I turned my attention to the problem of adding pickups to the Hunslet pony truck and came up with this of which I am rather proud! I am sure that all the N gaugers out there will think that I have plenty of room to play with here but it proved an interesting challenge for me. After several attempts at getting wire to wipe on the flanges, on the wheel, on the back and on the rims they all seemed to result in either no power getting through or the wheels not going around, neither of which were acceptable! So, I eventually came up with this development of the rather neat springs that someone sent me a picture of when I had (sorry, still have), problems with pickups on the Simplex. To start off I drilled the frames in line with the backs of the wheels and then super glued a length of thin wire across both sides.

I did this as I had found on my test on a piece of scrap fret (yes a test before just diving in - I must be growing up or something!), that it was difficult to hold small bits of wire perpendicular to the frame. Once set I pulled the wire out from the insulation leaving it in place in the frame. It was simple to then cut it back but leaving it a bit proud on the inside to avoid shorts with the frame. A bit of paxolin was then tinned and glued inside on each side. Now it was time to experiment with rather a lot of different springs made from 10thou Beryllium Copper wire which were passed through my insulated grommets to make contact with the wheel backs.

Pretty neat, almost invisible and it works! Just need to finish off the other axle then load as much lead as possible into the truck before sitting back and watching the Hunslet glide effortlessly over the point work - well I can dream, can't I?