It occurred to me yesterday that it had been a while since I visited RMWeb, "Oh, it must be a few weeks now..." I said to myself. However, logging on to view the fascinating, entertaining and sometimes stunningly inspirational projects on show I was utterly shocked to discover that it's been many months and that my last blog entry was before Christmas last year! What the heck have I been doing?

Thankfully the answer is quite a lot really and therefore an update on the Bury 0-4-0 is a good place to start. As I may have mentioned before the Bury goods is one of many 'components' that will make up a small exhibition layout of London & Birmingham Railway Coventry station set in 1839. My good friend Tom Nicholls has been hard at work researching until his fingers are numb, and building a website https://coventry1839.org to explain the history of Coventry station thereby creating an opportunity for me to describe all the modelling involved. In fact, that's where all my blogs have been disappearing to so please do visit and catch up on progress.

In the meantime the Bury goods has received its coat of green which has made a big difference. 

The wires poking out the front were to test the motor and gearbox in situ with everything in place and thankfully it runs very sweetly,

However, once I connected the finer wires from the pick ups and separate ones from the motor (it will be DCC) it still ran smoothly enough except for an irritating wobble on the left front wheel. I've traced this to a slightly skewed fit of the nylon bush between the hub and the axle.

Fixing the wobble will require the whole thing to be dismantled which is not as bad as it sounds as it's designed to be taken to bits if required, and re-set the wheel straight. I might check the distance between crankpins again just to be sure there's nothing weird going on there too.

The loco is really small in 4mm scale but weighs in at 95g thanks to stuffing every last gap with tungsten putty which I find a very useful way of adding necessary tractive weight in such tiny locos. No.79's job at Coventry will be to run from one end to the other pulling half a dozen or so small wagons which it should manage quite easily. I have since painted a driver and fireman who will find a semi-permanent home on the footpath once the tender is coupled and the DCC chip plugged in.