It's a long road, coming towards an end. That end, of course, being a completed, working, and now painted, locomotive. After the application of a coat of LMS Crimson Lake:

Following detail painting and reassembly, it looks more like this and it's still not quite finished:

By way of a summary, more details can be found in the UK Standard Gauge Industrial part of the forum, or in this earlier blog.The deviations from the kit as designed were:

• New bunker back (the original was undersize)
  
• New smokebox and tank wrappers (smokebox too short in every direction, tank builder error)
  
• Piston rods reduced to 'scale' diameter and cylinders sleeved to suit
  
• Boiler assembly completely remodelled to get a decent sized motor/flywheel/gearbox combination in - a Mashima 1016 driving Romford 40:1 might have been ok in 1992, but...
  
• Numerous minor details which were either not supplied in the kit (couplings, draincocks, reversing lever, etc.) or which I felt could be improved upon (e.g. boiler backhead)
  

As with all kit built locos, a few additional parts were bought in:

• Wheels and crankpins - Alan Gibson
  
• Motor/Flywheel - Branchlines
  
• Gearbox and bearings/hornguides - High Level (nothing wrong with the supplied versions but the High Level ones were more compact - the Impetus versions are now under a Standard 4)
  

Cosmetic bits:

• Worksplates - Golden Arrow
  
• Nameplates and coupling hooks - AMBIS (the hooks were in stock, top, shackle type links were spares from Masokits screw couplings)
  
• Backhead castings - Backwoods Miniatures
  

All in all it's not been a bad experience as a build. Rather protracted, of course (I started back in 2007, though much of the work was done in the last twelve months), but that was not the fault of the kit.

Adam