Last night I was at the club. We were titivating BBC (Blackwell Brewery Company) for the St. Neots show next weekend (14th / 15th March). With all the layouts we currently have under construction, we don't have room in the clubroom to keep the layout permanently erected so this was the first chance I have had to run the E4 and the J17 on the layout. Frustratingly, they didn't run perfectly! The J17 suffers mysterious short circuits, which shouldn't happen so I will have to find out what's happening today and rectify the trouble. Otherwise, the loco runs as I expect it to, very slowly and smoothly.

The E4 doesn't get round the curves without derailing. Last September, at the Mid Essex show, an EM layout allowed me to run the loco and it was fine, since then I've added the fall plate between loco and tender so I suspect the inability to get round curves now is because the fall plate is restricting the movement. This is easily sorted with a file and then touch up with a bit of black paint, so I now have two more jobs for the workbench today that I didn't expect.

However, frustration can always be tempered with good news! I also have a Lima Class 20 and a Heljan Class 15, both of which have been converted to EM and ran very well, the Lima Class 20 in particular as it now has the Ultrascale produced worm gear and wheel. I will be taking some video at the show of the loco running and then will be posting this to the site, if you're reading this and interested, you can read more about this conversion here and Ultrascale are prepared to produce the gears for other modellers. Other jobs I have to do on the workbench today are to fit the detailing both locos and also flush glazing for the Cl 20. This won't be the end of the work on the Cl 20, however - it currently has headcode boxes and the early locos didn't, so I will have to remove them. As Tony Wright says in his thread, for some of us, the joy of railway modelling is making things, and this is definitely very true for me!

Another frustration is that I have to re-apply the numbers to the Gresley 51ft full parcels brake that I made from a Kirk kit. I had numbered it, but then when I got it home, discovered the numbers had rubbed off in transit so this time I will varnish the coach once I've reapplied the numbers and before I do anything else. That's an easy matter to fix, but just annoying I have to redo a job!

The last frustration was pointed out by the rivet counters at the club last night. Bless them! I have purchased a totem sign for the Saxlingham fascia that I will be redoing shortly, and thought the blue I'd ordered was the correct one. It turns out I'd ordered the Scottish region blue, so I'm going to have to reorder that or move the location of Saxlingham 400 miles North. I don't think Norfolk will be very happy with that so I'll just have to swallow my loss for being stupid!

Hey ho. At least I'm on my own today, so the volume control on the music is heading clockwise!

Phil