I've soldiered on with the DJH E1 class, adding handrails and some boiler fittings.

The instructions are a bit vague, and my available photos a little murky, so I'm going to be prepared to redo some of these pipes

when I get a better sense of how they run, for a given loco. Also, I've held off from adding all the DJH castings as some of them look

very sketchy, such as the feed connections (I think that's what they are!) that are meant to enter the boiler half way up.

Perhaps I'll pick up some better ones at Railwells! The plastic ones that came with the Airfix Schools looked better than the

DJH things.

Details aside, I'm delighted with how well it runs. Just being able to plonk in a DJH gearbox is a great advantage, in my book,

as most of the trouble I've had with kitbuilt engines has been due to gear meshing, motor torque etc, rather than chassis

elementals such as frames, coupling rods, valve gear, pickups and so on. 

For this loco, incidentally, I decided to experiment with 0,33mm phosphor bronze wire pickups rather than 0.45 mm wire, and

the results are perfectly satisfactory from a running point of view. The only drawback is that the pickups are more vulnerable

to mis-handling. But, being 0.33 wire, they should be a good solution for bogie pickups and so on where you don't want too much

frictional resistance. In this case, however, just two pickups on the main wheels seemed to be all that's required and I don't see

any point making work for myself!

Cheers, all!