At Ally Pally, Empire Mills operated with its china clay works option (to be fair, it’s the only option we have at the moment), using BR WR diesel hydraulics (a class 22, class 35, class 42 and class 52) and a solitary class 25 diesel-electric. I’m told (I wasn’t there – arrival of first born got in the way) that we didn’t disgrace ourselves. But for the next few week – if not months, there is a lot of work to do.

First we (I) need to persuade the Class 52 western to go round corners while coupled to anything. We have a niggling problem with one of the points to sort out. The large china clay dry needs finishing, the layout detailing added, scenery finished and then the whole lot covered in snow. The CME also has been directed to pay more attention to the setting up of Alex Jackson couplings as my bleat of ‘they worked fine on Hope under Dinmore’ apparently was not helpful and provoked a certain amount of incredulity by those in the group who did get to play trains at Ally Pally... Finally, although we ran as DCC, we need to re-wire the layout so that it can be used for both DCC and DC stock. So not a lot to do then. I’m sure Gareth and I will keep the posts coming...