Alex meets Katie...

It was the last of the four annual garden open days at Eaton Hall over the bank holiday, and having missed the other three this year I was determined to visit...

Add to that the fact that I'd finished my own model of Katie (called Alex) and wanted to compare with the replica that lives at Eaton Hall! It was a lovely day out, great weather, beautiful gardens, hopefully lots of money raised for charity, and the hi-light for me was the railway itself.

Katie is a replica built a number of years ago, and then re-worked a little by Alan Keef. To me the boiler is visually too large, and the smokebox too short as a result, it's not quite as pretty as the prototype - I have built my own 1:76 (4mm/ft) scale version using the original drawings and profile, so they don't look quite the same, however my little boy was very excited to see her! It's also interesting to see that they have lined the boiler - on my collection of photos I couldn't find any strong evidence of boiler lining on the Heywood engines so haven't included it.

It was nice to see the stock too - this is rebuilt from the original stock, so they are not replicas! The brakevan was a nice ride, we rode on the open bench on the end of the van. I think I'll look into offering this as a kit at some point.

The small brake van runs on the same sort of chassis as the top wagons, so that will be an easier product to bring to market once I've launched my own top wagons - and sourced some drawings and dimensions (otherwise I'll have to go back next year and measure it up!).

The original Heywood couplings are still in use, and my magnetic versions on the 006.5 stock don't totally match but at least are visually chunky enough I think.

Out in the park it's a pleasant (if a little boring) ride - shame that the line only goes around the current deer park, and doesn't re-trace more of the original route to be honest, but the fact that the Duke of Westminster re-instated any of it is a gift to the world of minimum gauge and I'd happily visit again, especially if they were operating with the replica 'Ursula' locomotive that usually resides (I think) at Perrygrove.

All in all, a good day out with the kids, and a little different from the usual preserved railway visits we take. More on the 006.5 soon...