The last couple of weeks have seen me snowed under literally and metaphorically. I thought the chip workload might have slowed a bit in January but not so as you would notice. It genuinely pleases me to know that my work brings a little pleasure into people's lives. Another enjoyable part of what I'm doing, and one which Paul Chetter and I have often spoken about is the importance of capturing these sounds as an historic record; a part of the nation's heritage. As I've said before it would be nice to try and capture every UK diesel and electric loco and unit. A mammoth task I know but we're working on it :-)

You Tube viewers will be pleased to know that the video camera has been dusted down and I'm all set to do a bit of filming over the next day or two. Things which I hope to film include;

1. The 08 which I've faded, weathered and fitted a v4 and two Zimo sugar cube speakers. It will demonstrate the new manual priming pump sequence and the user-selectable wooden or metal door slam sounds.

2. 37514 in weathered Railfreight Metals livery, standing in to demonstrate the new 37/9 sound project.

3. A short clip of the 25 demonstrating the user-selectable single or double compressor sounds and the ETHEL functionality.

4. A short clip of the 350, with a proper 350 this time, demonstrating the new on-board announcements.

5. A work-in-progress clip of the Heljan Deltic just to prove that I have actually been doing some work on it!

In other news, Charlie has temporarily deviated me from my intended path and had me bringing my v3.5 Thumper project into the 21st Century (purportedly in readiness for the Kernow model but I suspect it's more to do with the fact that he wants one!). The range of sounds isn't quite as exhaustive as some of my other stuff as I don't have a fully comprehensive set of recordings but I'll fix that in the fullness of time. It's just about ready now.

I've also made a start on a custom speaker box for the Heljan 7mm 37 which will use the Visaton 70x40 drive unit. I suspect it may growl a bit...

I was hoping to get some good railway shots in the white stuff but there was a distinct lack of sun. I did manage to capture 70005 on the way to work though.