http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRUJqdbu6VU

If I may make a confession...I love my 94xx pannier tank. I bought it on a whim a very long time ago, and when its motor died out some time after shooting Episode 3, I knew I wanted to remotor it. I did the normal thing, Bachmann 57xx chassis, and then it kind of snowballed from there...!

Hawk is a character that has no place in the series whatsoever. While some of the 94xx class were built in Leeds (and it is this reason that assauged my guilty conscience when filming Hawk for the episodes), my feeble attempt at shoehorning Hawk in by "coming home from the Lickey Incline, VIA Copley Hill"...was historically inaccurate and totally and completely feeble. He shouldn't be anywhere near Leeds, let alone Copley Hill!

So, I apologise for selling out in terms of the character Hawk (who then went on to star in another episode, 12, and then 14, then a series of BRWS shorts, and is due to return at some point when I figure out if I can write him into the series finale somehow...!), but I loved the idea of this character so much, and he ended up being one, if not the - most popular character of the characters on Youtube. I had to bring Hawk back.

I intended this to be a short, humorous episode after the drama of Episodes Eight, Nine and Ten, and I sincerely hope that it made for great viewing. Gronk, the new diesel shunter was the first indicator of the intended historical nature of the series to shine through: the end of steam, and the start of rampant dieselisation.

Many people have compared this meeting of a pannier tank and an 08 diesel shunter to that of the good reverend's "Duck and the Diesel Engine". It is a fair comparison on many levels. Both are shunters of GWR and BR origin. Both of the steam engines have bird related names (although entirely unintentional - when naming Hawk after his designer, Hawksworth, I must confess the idea that this was similar to Duck never entered my head. On my defense, I have made Hawk a very different character to Duck and likewise Gronk to Diesel). The differences are clear in terms of literary construct. One accepts the new order as equal, the other does not. I toyed around with this same idea later on in the series, in Episode 15...

The models of the diesels at the start of the episode are of the prototype Deltic, a class 47 diesel in British Railways two tone green, and the Brush prototype Falcon, all of which became icons in their own right on British Railways, be it through the production of a much loved class of diesels (the Deltics), the sheer numbers of work horses throughout the system (the class 47 and their subsequent rebuilds), and the mystique in a short lived prototype (Falcon, the lone class 53). Another small confession - I do like my prototype diesels...and yes, I now have a Kestrel too...!