About me

Who am I?

Well, they call me Dave and I'm a retired 60 something model railway hobbyist (as well as being a husband, a caravanner, DIYer, etc) living in East Anglia, UK.  I have always had an interest in mechanical objects, particularly cars and motor cycles in my long forgotten youth which we frequently took apart and rebuilt as you did in those days. Today's vehicles are far too complicated to be treated in that way so now I leave it to the so-called experts and pay their excessive charges like the rest of us.  I have also built/owned both 'O' gauge and 'OO' gauge model railways over the years and spent many a cold and draughty day on our local stations in the days of steam with my trainspotters books!

How did I get into this?

When I retired I decided to indulge my past interest in model railways and became involved with 16mm scale Narrow Gauge steam garden railways.  Having joined Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers, then a local group, I've spent several happy years developing this hobby which I'll tell you about one day when I get time to expand this site. 

As a result of some of the members of the group graduating to 5 inch gauge coal fired steamers,  I became hooked on this larger scale that you can actually ride on.  That led me to buy a 5 inch gauge Polly 2 coal fired steam engine which I bought second hand about a year ago.  From there, with other members of the group building their steamers from scratch, it was just a matter of time before (with plenty of their encouragement) I decided to build one myself.

Now, my working life was in an office environment so there was no way I was going to be able to build from scratch! A kit was the only way forward.

Previous experience?

Well, sort of. I have built  all the rolling stock and lineside buildings for my 16mm narrow gauge garden railway from various proprietary kits and, even though I do say so myself, they've come out looking pretty good. I also  constructed the raised trackbed.  But as far as building a steam engine, no experience whatsoever - this may get interesting!!

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