'Better late than never', as the saying goes so here a mere eight days but 192 very hectic hours (OK, I was asleep for some of them!), after the Trent Area 7mm Narrow Gauges' lovely showlet at Mickelover in Derbyshire, is a brief update on my contribution. A contribution which which spanned two tables with a six foot test track upon which four years work shuttled happily back and forth and and 14 out of the 22 planed models were displayed in some form of completion or other. It is rather scary that it is all taking so long but but the challenges such as learning 2 and 3d CAD and the art of etching as well as never having been so busy work wise due to a certain virus, have all contributed. 

But back to the present.... The  rationale for this project was that if I couldn't get sufficient numbers of trams working in a realistic time scale then there was no point in going forward with the project. The aim of the display was therefore, to show the evolution of the vehicles from, plans, to CAD drawing, to etches and then completed trams. There was also included sub displays of the evolution of the wheels from 3d printed masters to lost wax castings to fully machined products. The lovely bouncy trolley poles were not left out either!

It was not all static of course, various trams went back and forth all day on the auto shuttle test track reinforcing the fact that N20 motors are up to the task. Taking pride of place though, was the Tividale car that I had moved heaven and earth to complete in the final week, with the adverts being printed at 1.30am before the show. This was resplendent on it's little turntable revolving at 10rpm all day except from when I knocked it over which was rather too frequent!

All in all , a very enjoyable day with a chance to catch up with lots of old friends and possibly make some new ones1