New crane ..

The engineers check out a new arrival, this time for the works train - a nice little crane from the LGB ToyTrain range...

track cleaning loco - new 'grinding' wheels

Little maintenance job this weekend, fitting new 'grinding' wheels to my LGB track cleaning loco; its a fiddly job to get the cleaning motor section out, but once done it is easy to swap out the 'grinding' wheels

A quick ziz with some power to make sure I hadn't pulled off a wire - all was ok

New Toy Train...

My new toy arrived today - a LGB Harlequin Toy Train starter set, I bought this set as it has a battery loco operated  using a remote control - ideal to plonk on the tracks with a small train of an evening when you don't fancy spending time cleaning the track. The remote control can trigger four sound effects including a chuff and a whistle.

Out of the box and a quick play to get used to the remote control

 couldn't resist trying it out on my garage layout for a short while

The new items will be repainted and have new couplings so they can be used with my existing rolling stock. The two wagons will become part of the permanent way train - in the same range there is a small crane - will have to put that on my future purchase list :)

Back on track ...

Quite literally 'back on track' - had a blitz today on track refurbishment, cleared off my wargame table and setup for action.

After a couple of hours finished cleaning about 40 track sections and added new track joiners, hoorah finally finished - all the track stacked up on shelves above my garage layout - ready to be laid outside.

Not idle outside either - engineers arrive to check progress on clearing the site of the first part of the trackbed...