Andrew

Moving away from the Southern Region... and from much further afield is this DB Class 216 diesel: Josh's sound fitted Class 66 looked and sounded good but his intermodal wagons were a bit of a handful to keep on my erratic track: Finally, in the absence of any conductor rails to clean, it was time for a bit of weedkilling:

Two lovely videos - a real summer feeling. Great to see those grimy locos, esp the 56 and 37. It must take you a while to put all those wagons onto the track. And the flowers are superb, a fine show.

Once you're home again Tony, everything will look better and you'll have some great ideas for the railway. Get well, and I hope they let you home very soon. Here's an old Lima NSWGR loco especially for you:

That looks like a great railway, with quite a long run. Well done for getting all that track laid. You'll have to watch out that the plants don't grow up and start to grab the trains...

Continuing with the Southern theme from Geoff and Josh's visit, here's a Class 73 on what looks almost like a Gatwick Express: Never mind about the absence of a conductor rail. After which we move to the Uckfield branch where this Turbostar, having left Victoria far behind, cruises through the Kent countryside on the single track section near Cowden:

Back on the DGR It's spot the difference time: OK, the real thing was running with black nameplates that day, whereas the model has red ones. And the Peco track doesn't look anything like real track.

A great day out Lots of fun today at the Bluebell Railway's "Road meets Rail" working steam festival deep in the Sussex countryside on a scorching hot day at Horsted Keynes station (and that's not me covered in coal dust on a traction engine):

Update Geoff and Josh came over yesterday, as usual bringing a whole range of exciting models to run. Here by way of a foretaste is a shot of Josh's very detailed (and high quality sound fitted) "Clan Line" on one of the Surrey Hills excusions that are once again coming through Dorking every few weeks:

Hello Tony, I see from your message on Thomas's thread that you are still in hospital. I'm very sorry to hear that. Of course all of us here send you our very best wishes and hope the doctors will let you go soon. I'm sure you will get better much quicker once you are home again. So all the best to you - and keep on moving ahead! Andrew

Locomotive failures Robert came to visit this week with a couple of new engines, the first (continuing with our theme of 0-4-0s) was a B4 LSWR shunter. She was a good-looking lady as these photos of her shunting at Weymouth Docks show. Sadly, despite being almost straight out of the box her performance was abyssmal and she will soon be wending her way back to Dapol's agents for repair or replacement. Staying with the Southern, we then ran resident Hornby West Country Ottery St Mary, seen here in a traditional pose on Foxdale Bank: But it wasn't her day either, as the second axle on the front bogie kept derailing. Closer inspection showed that the metal tyre had separated from the plastic wheel insert: so that probably needs careful application of superglue. Last up here is tender-drive A4 Bittern, again by Hornby. She ran very well but also had minor problems with one front bogie axle on which the plastic inserts seemed to have difficulty remaining in true alignment, although this didn't affect the ability to stay on the track. First photo shows her with an express on the East Coast Main Line near Peterborough: After that we submitted to the inevitability of the implausible fixed headboard sticker and ran her on the Tyne-Tees Pullman, although in some photos she seems to have wandered off the ECML into the wilds of County Durham or beyond: In the interests of accuracy, it's only fair to point out that the tender drive didn't actually have sufficient adhesion to haul nine sluggish coaches all the way round the layout.