Truth is stranger than fiction....

When my wife first saw the initial working drawing, she thought I was having a joke -but then so did her father...

The model is based on an Avonside design originally built for the New Zealand Govt Railways.

See Picture 1.

The picture was subjected to my measuring technique and I found proportions that I could not believe. I came across another Double Fairlie and the engraving was so exact that I was able to extract a believeable series of measurements. However I did not like the locomotive!!!

See Picture 2.

The model is constructed (as are all of them) of household junk. At this time I did not know if I would grow the hobby to the full, (as I do now), so it seemed prudent to make something cheap and if I got tired -I could simply donate the model to my, (then), two year old son.

The model was made of 80 thou ABS sheet -which did turn out to be far too thick to work comfortably by, 'crack and snap', methods. All later models have been made with 60 thou ABS sheet. The body of the loco is made of a series of boxes bonded together and a length of 55mm poly pipe. The chassis are the IP Eng de luxe ones. The loco did originally have RC and ESC -nowadays it simply has a DPDT switch and a 6V lead acid battery. Initailly it was powered by a collection of NiMH cells that took about 36 hours to charge for about 45 minutes of 'Fun'.

Note: modern chargers are a lot faster!

See Picture 3.