After a stupidly busy Summer with all maner of complications ( but with a bit of fun thrown in!), I have finally managed to get down to a bit of play time. Having spent several weeks thinking about it, I came up with a plan to motorise the bogies driving just one axle on each through a High Level Minimiser gearbox - very clever units and interesting to put together. So after a couple of hours work I had this;

Nothing particularly adventurous and only exotic tool used was my brilliant little pillar drill. What uis more it all ran very smoothly on it's roller bearings. Now, one draw back with this loco was that I now needed to do it all again!

Very soon it was time for a test run, which, I think you will gather from the picture showed up a lack of weight in the body;

With the little weight additions that came to hand it did actually run very well although it is riding far too high on the bogies at the moment. I think some lead in the body might be a more practical solution. I have to work out how I am going to fit couplings now and finish of a few detail bits on the body and then am almost there - 8 months later but with work taking place on it on only about 10 of those days! Could well make it's debut at Peterborough show (15th + 16th Oct) or failing that EXPO NG (29th Oct). All of which brings me on to the new toy.

After nearly 10 years of gloriously unreliable but spacious service my Freelander has finally been replaced with a Mk2 which (on paper), boast 20% more luggage space. Getting the layout in won't be a problem then but better just check........ All that extra space is of course all hidden away in totally impracticle corners and under seats and things. I did manage to get it all in eventually but is not quite as neat as in the other one;

This then brings me on to the giant spiders - well perfectly normal sized ones I guess but when they make their home in a 7mm layout they are truly overscale. The layout has remained boxed up since Apdale in May and it was only during the above exersize that I found a very generous coating of cobwebs and their creators all over the layout. I guess I have a bit of unseasonal Spring cleaning to do in the next couple of weeks.