Now if you are staring at this and thinking "why" then there really is no answer, so click off elseware!

I initially intended building a loco, but after it took me about two years to get round to cutting out some frames I realised that my lad would have finish it after I was dead and buried before it got finished and I wanted us to enjoy using a steam loco while he is still young, so Myself and my Dad, went halves on a Don Young Mountaineer, which despite its size is only a 3 1/2 inch gauge model.

It looked a fine model, but initially it suffered some problems, largly with the injectors (well what do you expect I hear the hardened steam cranks say!), keeping the things steam up (which was mainly due to its inexperienced owners!) and a  desighn fault with the water level gauge, which was fed off the steam manifold, so the level went up and down like a yo yo all the time.

Now thanks to a huge amount of help from members of the Reading Society of Model Engineers, and in particular les Dawson she runs like a dream, although is quite hard work to keep going, the fire needs almost constant attention, whilst at the same time keeping an eye on the injector and trying to work out if the axle pump is working. The blower needs to on all the time in order to keep pressure up, but if I'd wanted it easy I would have got a battery electric.....

.......ah a battery electric....