Having now recovered from six weeks away I now feel a bit of an update is on the cards. I spent most of my time in Scotland with a week in Yorkshire and a week in Berlin. Railways were very much the theme of the visit and I managed to take in most transport museums in the areas visited.

Glasgow's new transport museum was first up and was quite impressed by the architecture.

I was also rather impressed by the large South African locomotive on show. This was the one that was on the Monster Moves television program.

Next down to Sheffield to visit the wife's family. We stopped off in York first though and stayed right next to the station. This was handy for train spotting opportunities.

It also meant that the Railway Museum was within easy walking distance.

I was quite please to see this upon entry. Very nice. Always been one of my favourite British loco's.

In Berlin I was quite impressed by the new Hauptbahnhof. Awesome railway station.

On the way down the the Deutsche Technicks museum I stopped to have a look at all that was left of the old Anhalter station. It must have been an impressive sight in its day.

The Museum still has turntable and sheds in good condition with a good selection of locos.

This is a model of the Anhalter station before destruction.

Like the National Railway Museum in York, there is also a cut open loco here showing how it all works. This is a KPEV P8 rather than a Merchant Navy though.

I wanted to go on a trip on an ICE and went to Braunschwieg. This loco sits out the front of the railway station.

Getting back to model railways, having arrived back to our house in Melbourne I was pleased to see a large parcel from Modelbahn Kramm which contained many items needed for the layout. Most of the stock I had was epoch 2 but generally based in the north in Berlin. I had bought a few items which were more appropriate for Bavaria so a Brawa Br 38 steam loco.

I also bought a few electrics appropriate for the era. I has initially found these dull and uninteresting but now love them now. Especially the bigger ones. So a Roco E-94;

Brawa E 73.

and a Brawa e 77

While inputting these locos into the ECoS I had a screen freeze which I have been unable to resolve. It occurred when trying to set long addresses to Railcom locos. The ECoS seemed to do a reset whenever I tried to program them with the long address. After one of these resets the screen froze and set on the track plan diagram and has not responded to any touch since. The loco that was on the prog track when the final reset and freeeze occurred was a loksound v4 so I wouldn't have expected that.

I have spent a bit of time trying to resolve the problem but the screen will not move from the track plan mimic diagram screen unless given an external command when linked to a computer. I had managed to get the rescue mode screen and the initial screen after factory reset mode. I also had the screen calibration screen up but none of them will respond when touched. Having faced facts; it's eight years old and has served well in that time, I suppose I will have to get a new colour screen one.This wasn't factored into my budget so other things such as catenary and more signals will have to wait now. Unfortunate but these things happen.

I have a load of signals to install which will complete the north side of the layout.

The signals will all be digitally controlled so I need to get the new controller before I can set this up so this will all have to wait. I also have some kits to build. I got one of these sets which has four buildings in one kit as they are more economical and I need a few.

I can start work on the kits now but will have to wait a bit until I can order a new controller till I start doing the rest of the signals. So plenty to do from here.