I am afraid that the start of the school holidays and an absurdly accurate weather forecast was just too much to resist so slightly before first thing on Monday I was off with the little one on an adventure to Snowdonia. After a very naughty breakfast at our favorite Siabod Cafe and an as advertised two minute erection of our tent we were greeted by a Garrett at Rhyd Ddu before a speedy and idyllic climb to the pointy bit of Snowdon . Next day was a fun day with canoeing in the morning followed by Copper mine in the afternoon and a quick visit to the WHR Heritage and a very conservative half of Butty Bach at the revamped harbour station at Pourthmadoc . Could very easily have sat there much longer and disposed of far more beer but fish and chips taken over to Borth Y Guest as is our tradition, gave a brilliant view of Lew across the Cob. Altogether perfect Welsh weather that we are very fortunate in catching most times we go. Next day was another hike up Snowdon but this time with my Mother as well so probably had the distinction of accompanying the youngest and oldest (8 and 78!), people on the mountain that day.

Anyway, with all this excitement (not to mention the ice on the tent in the morning!), progress has been a bit limited. Have managed to fit the Black Beetle, kicking and screaming into the Simplex body. Having had to remove so much metal and with the open construction the only sensible way of fixing was rather permanently with lots of epoxy. Worked out a couple of tricks to get it right though. To get the correct coupling height I found some plastic section of the appropriate size and balanced the body on this front and back on top of a bit of straight Hornby set track. This was handy as a piece of masking tape was put down the middle and the center easily found via the track pin holes and a line drawn to get the body centered properly. Pics are not too clever but you may be able to make it out.

I then trial fitted the Digitrax SDH166 sound chip and speaker and gave it a run.

Not a resounding success! Although it runs fine the sound keeps cutting out and restarting suggesting to me that the 'stay alive' capacitor is not working. I have not Googled this problem yet but any advice would be very welcome!