OK, a OO Black Five would not be unusual on many layouts but when the layout is 7mm narrow gauge I think it needs some explaining! You may remember the problems I was having with the Hunslet, well I finally came up with a way of testing the track out properly. Being Mothers day yesterday we had my in laws round which was quite convenient as my Father in Law has a rather nice DCC sound equipped Hornby Black Five. Now if something this size will run through, anything will! And guess what - it ran perfectly! One thing it did show up however is that even twenty foot long end to ends are not enough to really appreciate a loco like this.

So blame lies firmly with the Hunslet. One thing that I did notice about the Black 5 was that there was an incredible amount of side play in the axles whereas there is almost none on the Hunslet. Not wishing to hang about I soon had the wheels off and the packing washers out and seems much better now. Is still not quite right though and not aided by me messing up the quartering but my patience had run out by this stage so will get that sorted later. Still some work to do but far more encouraging.

More very tedious work has been going on with the control panels and have now put right my mistake with the diagram (worse bit was having to go back to the print shop shame faced to get it redone). After rewiring a couple of sockets I had managed to put in upside down I am now getting somewhere with this again. Will post more pics when it looks more interesting than just a mess of wires.