Rather like a child that you see everyday and don't notice growing up, the Alco, with little bits being done when time allows, has suddenly turned into an adolescent without me noticing! All those little bits have added up. I finally managed to finish the pony trucks complete with ball race bearings and pick ups;

My attempts at machining the domes from brass in the traditional manner were not really getting any further that producing piles and piles of expensive swarf so having some good drawings to work with I talked to some people with far better 3d printing abilities than myself - this is on my self improvement bucket list along with losing weight, learning to swim and speaking Welsh (although not necessarily at the same time!), but am not getting very far with any of them! Any way, with much help from Will J And Simon Dawson I was able to get some nice items printed through his rue_d_etropal Shapeways shop;

Next big thing was to get the tanks fitted in a more or less straigh and level fashion. After much thought and BluTack I soldered some temporary braces from copper clad strip to the tops which held them in place while the more permanent and very much more to scale braces were made up and soldered in place.

Much very unphotogenic fun was had with getting all the DCC bits in place. A speaker in one tank, the stay alive in the other and the chip in the boiler all joined up with some very handy micro connectors obtained from some hot country or another via Ebay at a fraction of what such items cost from model suppliers.

After many other odds and ends that would be far too boreing to relate here we have this rather fine looking beast;

Like all good teenagers however, it is having it's moments! It really does thing that the pony trucks are unfashionable and really doesn't want to wear them! The sound sometimes goes all sullen and won't talk and the other day it just wouldn't get up and out of bed at all!

I will get it all sorted somehow. It did have a little outing to the Mickleover show the other week which was enjoyable day out all 'round apart from the 5AM start that is! So some olucky people have seen it already. These same people also helped muchley in the main objective of the day which was to give all the stock a good run and try to get to the bottom of the issues with the couplings. It became quite a spectator sport in the end, watching the little hooks going up and down. Thanks must go to Simon J for helping out all day and to Mike B for organising it all.

The objective with the Alco was to get it all finished for Tracks to the Trenches at Apedale in May but, with a bit of luck it will be looking pretty grown up and earning a living in time for Narrow Gauge North in Leeds next Saturday!

As a complete aside (and as a test to see if anyone reads this far down!), having spent a large part of today replacing a window regulator on the Freelander (honestly, if I had not just removed the thing from the door I would never have thought it possible to fit it in there!), I was wondering if anyone had ever used one of these to power a traverser?