Thanks Pops.

Love at first sight!  This little Peckett engine type was a familiar sight in industrial railway yards across the UK. I've been wanting a private line on Port Appin for a few years but without an off-the-shelf choice I've been stumped.  Then Hornby announced this little engine last year, I placed and order and it arrived a week ago.  It's now sold out.  A company in North Yorkshire supplied it with a new name and weathered it for me.

The name has significance; my first trip on a named railway engine - and on my first holiday was when I was 11 and my Granpop took me to Birmingham to stay with Aunty Mabel.  

The engine that steamed into Durham Station was a Peppercorn designed A1 Class, new in 1948,  Madge Wildfire.  I felt the platform shake under my feet, the enormous 6' 8" driving wheels ground and squealed to a halt, steam drifted past me and the smell of Welsh coal smoke filled my nostrils.  Slam doors on the old BR coaches clattered shut, a whistle shrieked across the now empty platform and a huge 'huff' coughed from the 166 ton locomotive set the whole train in a quiet glide down the platform and onto Durham Viaduct where the driver gave it full power and with wheels slipping it dragged its coaches up the incline and on its way south.

My grandparents helped shape so much of my early life I thought naming my new model after that first train ride was appropriate.

I hope it stays in the family for a while.