Well its been a while since I have posted anything on here, mostly because like most people the festive season has not allowed much time for modelling, but also because I lost my "Mojo".

So I had to look for inspiration, it was during this search that I discovered Amazon, and there supply of Railway books, so three astute purchases at a gran total of 58p, plus postage (I'm not tight, just prudent, despite what other people claim )provided a little inspiration and my "Mojo" started to return.

An even better source of inspiration was found in the form of "holy water" which I had to imbibe, in copious amounts as for some unfathomable reason the fridge is full of the stuff

Taking a decent amount of this stuff to the spare room, purely of course to protect the Domestic Overlord from having to drink the stuff I set about trying to finally get one of my locomotives running as it should.

The victim, was my Farish Royal Scot, it has always ran "lumpy" ever since I bought it new, I had meant to get round to this a lot sooner as I have had the loco for 4 years plus, but always found something better to do. Anyway working in a logical way (which is not something I do often) I separated the loco from the tender. A couple of minutes later I had the body off the tender, and then I noticed the problem, a bloody DCC chip . For me DC is the way to go, none of this DCC stuff for me.

I had bought this loco from new, and as far as I was concerned it was not DCC fitted, someone in the shop must have fitted the chip to demonstrate it to customers, thankfully someone on another forum kindly sent me some blanking plates, and it was not long before one was fitted. Running improved but it was still no right. After more investigation, it appeared to have an intermittent short, so I went back to old fashioned technology and I stripped the chassis down, and hard wired the motor.

During this I also removed a lot of what can only be described as a white waxy/oily solid material from the motor/worn, but once reassembled the loco ran brilliantly, not bad for a 4 plus year project.

Once I got this delinquent running sweetly, I decided to look at my Jubilee fleet, and although I have not hardwired any of these I did seem to remove more of the white stuff from two of them. So I decided to run the fleet, all I need to do now is figure out where I have "safely" put their nameplates and then maybe apply some more weathering?

5690 Leander - Dignity saved by being repainted from a terrible BR Green livery (still needs a little finishing)

5643 Rodney - Again another fallen lady rescued from a horrible BR Green livery (soon to be weathered)

5682 Trafalgar - looking travel weary with a heavy train

5699 Galatea - heading a semi-fast

Pride of the line 5572 Eire, storming past the station on pilot duty, and in very clean condition.

As you can see they still need, a little more work, but the time taken on them so far has improved their running measurably.

Now its time for a little more liquid inspiration, if only to find an viable excuse to add another Scott and maybe a Jubilee to the fleet. Until the next time as ever as ever Happy Modelling