With aging hands and eyesight this will be the last kit build for me as I`ve now got quite a selection of builds to play with, plus it`s time to start playing with them all.

I`ve been wanting to build one of these for quite a while and took the plunge just after Christmas.   £ 400  gets you a complete kit including wheels and a motor/gearbox kit plus all the  detail parts in either lost wax or white metal including seating parts for the passenger saloon. Scorpio supply three instruction booklets, covering  the motor bogie, trailing bogie and body. It is a complex kit.

As ever I kicked off with building  the motorised bogie and vertical boiler unit, starting with the coupling rods.

There is a great set of etches in nickel silver for the bogie frames etc.  There is provision for beam compensation but I have opted for a fixed chassis as this is a complex build.

Reading the instructions several times is essential for this kit as they flit about rather than flow in sequence.

Nickel silver solders so well and I numbered the parts required at each stage.

 The etched bearing holes are accurately positioned.

But I like to be doubly sure, as this mechanism will be difficult to be dismantled even for painting.

I do like to have compensation with loco chassis but this would have added too much complication with the internal white metal detailing.

The motion parts are very finely etched or lost wax which benefit from fettling before assembly.

Not the simplest of ways to construct slide bars, but they do look the part.

But after a bit of a clean up  it all comes together....

.......................... more to follow...........................