Meanwhile, back on the late 1960’s model ra….. train set there had been a few developments. I had steadily accumulated Super 4 track to the extent I could lay out a decent double track oval on the floor, with several sidings, a couple of makeshift stations, one on each side of the oval, buffers, semaphore signals and a signal box.

Two trains could be run simultaneously, thanks to the Duette, and despite dad’s warnings, double headers were not unknown. Rolling stock remained very random, but enough to provide passenger and freight options and it had settled down into a fairly presentable train set, though still stored in a cardboard box and set up on the bedroom carpet at will.
There had been developments on the locomotive roster too. My first modern diesel had arrived, a Tri-ang Hornby Hymek D7063, in Rail Blue, an instant favourite and one that I disassembled and reassembled countless times once I had worked out the cunning spring clip on the chassis.

I have always loved Hymeks, perhaps because they are the first diesels I clearly remember. I had a blue one just like this, though in retrospect green with a small warning panel was the better livery.

Entirely out of keeping with this modern railway, but ideal for shunting my bogie bolster or well wagons, or indeed my ‘Freightliner’ container wagon, was the Tri-ang Hornby maroon LMS 3F Jinty No. 7606.

Not the most realistic livery I suspect, a very glossy maroon, but this was a good one, complete with flangeless centre wheels and Magnadhesion. I've likes Jinties ever since.

A more senior modeller may have had distinct misgivings about running a Blue Hymek on Pullman stock with an LMS tank locomotive on a container train, and I was aware that I was breaking modelling law and my chances of getting to heaven would be minimal, but I had a very comprehensive modeller’s licence, and anyway, I didn’t give a monkeys, it was all about running trains, and running them fast.

My chances of getting to heaven took another blow when I turned up for the Sunday School nativity play dressed as a pirate, but Mum should have asked what sort of fancy dress party it was!

This randomness of stock has never entirely left me, and is a theme I wish to develop later, when I was a grown-up who should have been far more sensible.

So there we have it, aged about ten and living in Scotland, I was running 2 x Princess Pacifics, a Blue Pullman, a Hymek, a Britannia, an LMS Jinty, a DMU, a dock shunter and a Hall. Well, to be frank, half of them were usually being overhauled, but I still made some of them work. Coaching stock remained motley, as did wagons. It may have been a random railway, but I worked those locomotives hard for years.

Ill-advisedly, I had also discovered Humbrol enamels through the usual Airfix kits (could be a blog in its own right) and I had started experimenting with liveries. The DMU suddenly appeared with a small yellow warning panel, in a fetching and very glossy shade of mustard. And let’s draw a veil over my attempts to repaint the ‘Albert Hall’.
And then, in early 1970, Dad announced we were going to go and live in Kent.

The railway was once again on the move.