Here's my first loco kit, the DJH C2X. More blood, sweat and tears have gone into this model than any other I own, but at the end of it all I have a reliably slow running goods loco which will happily plod around the layout at a crawl, and which is heavy enough to handle all I ask of it. But it hasn't been an easy route to get to this stage, and the saga's still not done!

I started the loco in 2000, having consumed the collected works of Rice, Wright etc - trying to do it all "by the book" and not make a mess of my first engine. But as I've documented elsewhere on Rmweb, the C2X never ran satisfactorily until I swapped the supplied motor/gearbox and installed a DJH can motor and assembled gearbox. It was a wonder the difference it made, and at least proved that the underlying chassis was sound.

The C2X went into store in 2007 when I packed up my old layout, and didn't turn a wheel until this year when I got it out of the box again. It was rough at first, but after a little lubrication and running, it soon settled down. Unfortunately the pickups had begun to come loose, so I redid them and was generally happy with the running. However, I had a feeling that it would be even more reliable with tender pickups. But how to add them? The DJH tender design is a bit basic, with the wheels running in heavy cast slots, and completely lacking brake gear, leading to a very "open" looking chassis. Squeezing in extra pickups without them being obvious would be tricky. Taking a fresh look at it last night, though, I reckoned I could arrange "V"-shaped pickups that would tuck behind the tender wheels without being visible from normal angles.

Not a great photo, but here's the loco and tender with the extra pickups on the leading and trailing tender axles, with a Comet electrical plug enabling the tender to be disconnected. Success! The loco is now essentially independent of its own pickup, meaning that running is totally stall-proof. In fact, I'd rate it as good as any RTR 0-6-0 I own, and the slow speed operation is fantastic.

However, as mentioned, that's not the end of the story. The first thing is that there's no room for a decoder in this engine, as I stuffed it with lead during the early testing. As my convention is now to only fit decoders to post-nationalisation stock, there's a simple solution - backdate the C2X to Southern days. Plain black isn't a hard livery to apply, so that's no problem. When I built the engine, though, I only had access to a couple of photos, and they were both of the right side, when viewed from the cab. The changes to C2X boilers seem quite a complicated business (the DJH instructions offer some guidance, but it's not the same as having drawings and photos) but from what I can tell, there should be a pipe running the length of the boiler on the left side, above the handrail. I've no idea what that pipe is - injector? superheater gubbins? - but it's in all of the photos I found on the web, although not provided for by the DJH parts. So that has to be added, and while I'm at it I may as well add some of the other missing detail, in the way of sanding gear, extra brake details, lamp irons and so on. And crew, of course - but not until it's resprayed.

Anyway, if there's a moral here, it's - don't give up!

(edited to correct spelling of Mr Billinton's name)