And in the beginning...

**UPDATED July 2015**



Post number 1 - a brief history of what I'm doing, how, why and where etc...

My "little" Dublo obsession began as a child - although I was born long after the demise of Hornby Dublo my brother was given a generous collection of old Hornby Dublo 3 rail track and rolling stock by our Uncle, which as the annoying younger brother I also got to play with. We did also have some 2 rail Triang kit and some rather nice boxed Wrenn locos - Dorchester & Cardiff Castle. I never saw Cardiff Castle run for more than a few feet at a time (the reason for which I would later resolve some 25 years later!) so the 3 rail stuff got more use, plus there was more track so more possibilities for layout designs.

Our Dublo collection consisted of the two popular locos, Duchess of Montrose and a 2-6-4 tank engine, most likely an 80054, a TPO set and a generous amount of track, coaches and wagons. More than enough for hours of entertainment.

Like everyone else, my brother and I grew up, our fondness for playing with model trains evaporated as we got older, left home, discovered girls and got married. The exact whereabouts of our old Dublo train set is still not entirely known but was most likely thrown away when my parents down-sized. All that remained were the two Wrenn locomotives, still in their boxes. The Dorchester had long since lost its front bogie due to constant derailments, so it was removed. The Cardiff Castle was more or less intact, mainly because it had never run properly. However both locos were complete non-runners, which was entirely my fault.

As a kid I had a passion for taking things to pieces - a bit of a quest for knowledge to see how things work etc, but the main reason why the two Wrenn locos were non-runners was because as a child I had taken both of them apart in a (futile) attempt to convert them to three rail running, using the only resources available to me at the time - namely a track pick up from a TCR (remember them?) racing car and of course Blu Tac! Needless to say my early attempts at three-railing failed dismally!

About seven years ago, I was at home, bored and surfing Ebay for various items. Out of curiosity I searched for Hornby Dublo and was surprised that there was still so much of it being offered for sale - and some eye-watering prices for some of the items being sold. I then happened to mention to my Mum that I had been looking and actually quite fancied collecting some Dublo again. Initially all I wanted to do was try to get back what we had as kids - a Duchess of Montrose and maybe a 80054 again, plus some track.

Some weeks later my Mum visited me and gave me a few presents - first she presented me with a small oval of three rail track that she had bought from a toy fair and then gave me the two boxed Wrenn locomotives (the ones I had trashed years earlier) at this time I hadn't known that they still existed and my Mum was unaware of their non-running state!

So I had track, two locos (which didn't run) and no power supply - but it was a start...

Several weeks later and after attending a toy fair I had acquired a Marshall power controller and my Mum presented me with a refurbished Duchess of Montrose, Finally I had something to run and I was in business!

So now I wanted to revisit the two Wrenn locos, either to repair them and restore them to their original two rail operation, or complete what I started all that time ago. I went back to Ebay and found a scrap 80054. My thinking was that all I really wanted was the third rail pick up to transplant into the Wrenn Dorchester and complete the conversion. I ended up paying £13 for the 80054 and when I took it to pieces, I realised how simple these old locos are. All it actually needed was a clean up and a new magnet (which I sourced from Ebay) and it was up and running again. Brilliant - I'd just fixed my first loco and brought something back to life, something I'd never managed as a kid!!!

Dorchester eventually got a proper three rail pick up after visiting another toy fair and that was soon returned to running operation - another major achievement given my total failure so many years ago. Cardiff Castle at first was more of a challenge, mainly because I hadn't worked out what the two holes in the tender were designed for! After some more head scratching, Ebay and Google searching I had my answers, and the plunger pick ups to convert properly.

And the reason for the poor running all those years ago... the screw that held the motor to the chassis was missing!

So now I had four running locos - three of which I had brought back from the dead with very little knowledge or experience. I couldn't afford boxed pristine "as new" items and so I decided that if I was going to collect more items then unless they were given to me as presents then the way for me to go was to buy play-worn / scrap / spares or repairs items only and fix them up as best as possible.

2-6-4 Tank Engine no. 80054 (left) my first repair!

And that was the beginning of my Obsession with Dublo - there is nothing quite like the sight, sound and smell of a 50+ year old loco thundering off down the track at full pelt. Even more satisfying when the loco is something that would otherwise have been scrapped, stripped for spares or thrown away. I decided that from now on I would start collecting as many items as I could and maybe in future sell on some of the repaired items - to date I haven't sold one single item of Dublo and have most examples of their locomotives.

I briefly experimented with DCC and managed to convert most of the locos that I owned at the time to DCC operation. Sadly there were too many issues and far too many blown up decoders to justify continuation of the project, so it was quickly abandoned and reverted to DC. But I did at least prove that it can be done!

As my collection grew, so did my layout. It ended up on boards and at 10ft x 16ft was too big for our modest two bedroom semi. As a result it saw life barely two to three times a year when my Mum would hire a local community hall. After a house move I had initially planned to build a new loft layout. But then there was a distraction...

The first layout and inspiration for "I 'ad that" - This was the last public appearance of the layout in September 2013. The layout suffered damage during the 2013/14 winter storms and was dismantled in March 2014.

The portable layout began to attract more and more attention and it wasn't long before I had an offer to exhibit at a public exhibition. Two years later and the layout was exhibited again, followed by more requests to show the layout in public. By this time the original 10ft x 16ft centre-operated layout was deteriorating - it wasn't built to exhibit, the tracks ran dangerously close to the board edges, meaning that derailments could be very costly. Also the boards were of a very basic construction and had started to warp very badly. The winter storms of 2013/14 also took their toll and hastened the decision to replace it with something a little more robust.

A solution was required and came in the form of a completely new, re-designed layout that would be based not only on a wish list of things I wanted to see in a new layout, but from all of the learnings gained from the first one. In March 2014, the first design of "I 'ad that" was drawn up and construction began on a new, scenic model railway to be ready by November 2014. We had the layout ready to show by August after hundreds of man hours!

The layout practically named itself - most of the people who got to see the first layout would often just point and say "I 'ad that!"

This blog was designed as a permanent record of my loco repairs and restorations, and the subsequent building of "I 'ad that"

I will post my progress on this blog, along with any interesting articles I can think of.