Well its summer and very little activity on the layout front. In the Uk the evenings are long and the gardening jobs many plus all the other bits and peices like painting etc there is little time to run the trains. Some years it gets very hot at the back of the workshop where the layout is located but certainly not a problem this year. For whatever reason not a lot has happened. The Dean Goods unfortunately broke one of its plastic gear wheels and therefore onl drives on two tender wheels instead of three and this is insufficient to allow it to actually move – it just sits and spins its wheels. I don’t think that it is repairable but I’ve put in the box ready for a winters evening to have a look at it. It is a nice model made by Mainline and on the box it states that it is Guaranteed for 3 months but as that was 25 or so years ago I don’t think that I have a claim. So that’s the one that has gone. The new one is a Triang Deeley/Johnson designed LMS 3F in BR black. This is not a tender drive. I bought it off ebay as a 3 rail conversion. It was interesting that the conversion using the spring brass pickups could never have been run as one of the brass pickups touched the screw head which attaches the engine to the tender and shorted it out completely. This was overcome by bluetacking a peice of cardboard between the pick up and the screw. It now works fine but it doesn’t have much pulling power just about managing 3 plastic wheeled plastic trucks and a brake van. I have posted a picture and it is interesting to note that the two private owner 5 plank wagons are Trix Twin which again I picked up very cheap at a local model railway exhibition. Adds a little colour and variety to the layout.

Very interesting discussion on Yahoo groups hornbyDublo 3 rail about the number and make of non HD 3 rail locos. I knew about Gaiety as I have one (the 0-6-0PT) and also bid on a N2 recently (went at over £50 so too expensive really) but some of the other makes were knew to me. The Trix 3 rail has to be modified to run on HD track as they used the middle road and one of the other rails to operate meaning that you could run 2 trains at once but tis also meant that one set of wheels were insulated. I do have a couple of Trix Twin engines converted to 3 rail. I will have to start looking out for the others on ebay.