Somewhere, in a field in Dorset...

Another weekend away with the caravan in tow, another steam fair and another marquee!

This time we were at Chickerell Steam & Vintage show for our second marquee experience in a row. Lots of blocks required for the legs and plenty of fiddling about trying to level the layout. Eventually we got everything level enough to run and after a couple of minor gremlins, the layout settled into reasonably good reliability over the weekend.

This was a chance to run many of the restorations and additions that have arrived since the last outing. Newly rescued 48159 and recently refurbished 48158 paired up reasonably well and although a little sluggish at times, stayed together all weekend.

With one of the blue EMU sets now sold, I'm down to a six car set but the blue & grey unit now has another three car dummy. These spent some time running together as a twelve car rake - quite impressive!

Clan Line proved to be one of the strongest and fastest runners. The TPO coaches need some mechanical attention as many of the steam locos couldn't pull them.

Also, having recently sold my 80059, I've created my own version...

I now have N2 tanks numbered from 69563 to 69567 and all ran without fault. The two new castles - Corfe & Lulworth also appeared after some further tweaking to make them run properly.

The Hogwarts loco ran exceptionally well, sadly the coaches proved to be very temperamental, so more work required on the coaches.

A very successful weekend, the only hiccup being that the marquee had a hole in it, which was right above the layout. Thankfully only one rain shower and the blue & grey EMU, which got leaked on, was swiftly moved out of the way. No damage done to the layout or rolling stock.

Casualties were light this time, a couple of the other N2 tanks in need of servicing and a few new tyres required. Nothing major.