Years ago I had a web site dedicated to my hobby of building model planes and traction engines, this no longer exists. My main hobby is now building model steam locomotives in 5″ gauge and my last project was building the Large Prairie tank as drawn by Trevor Shortland. Having essentially finished that project I decided to build the Peppercorn A1.
Whilst I published two books on the building of my traction engine Thetford Town in 2″ scale and on the Foden lorry in 3″ scale I did not record my build of the Large Prairie. I wish I had in retrospect so when I decided to build the A1 I decided to make a blog of my experience and endeavour. This then will be that record, warts and all. It may take three years or it may take 10 years, I do not know but typically 6 – 8 years is the length of my build projects. Put this into the context of now being 78 it should be an interesting journey.
So this first blog has little to say about starting other than I have the drawings and I have all the castings so watch this space……
Just to add to the challenge, this is my first entry into blogging. Times have moved on since I published my first web site and this is all new technology now so the development of the blog content and layout will undoubtedly change with my learning curve……so here we go…….. just go the diary page to get the latest updates.
After three years or so a quick explanation about the diary. It does tell what I am currently doing but the actual chapters are ongoing description so you will find perhaps some current work in the middle of a chapter, not at the end. Usually the chapters have sub-headings that relate to the work.
Building a 5" gauge A1 Peppercorn locomotive 