My first Union Mills Loco

[Tdm]

Arrived today - a Union Mills J39 in green.

After reading about Union Mills locomotives I just had to try one so opted for the J39 as I already have a Farish J39 and wanted to compare them.

First thing I noticed when unpacking it was how heavy it is when compared to "plastic bodied" models.

I know you are supposed to run engines in on their own to begin with, but after a couple of circuits I couldn't resist coupling it up to a rake of 10 hoppers to see how it pulled them - and the answer - easy.

It is slightly bigger & taller than the Farish model (see photos below) , but I like it. It looks strong and well made despite not having as much fine detail as on the Farish version, and will probably be more difficult to break - which is good.

I bought it from KJB as Union Mills "direct" is shut for the holidays, and it came within 7 days of ordering it from Katie, which is something of a record for Tenerife.

PS. Had another surprise package in our home today (see 2nd photo) - a little Geko, which managed to catch and put back outside as they are good for the garden as they eat some of the nasty little insects we get in our grounds. We have quite a few Geko families living on our complex, mostly in the rocks in the garden, and it is rare for them to venture indoors. 

 

[Caz]

Geckos are good in the house as well, I like to have one or two resident to eat any little beasties, especially spiders.

[Newportnobby]

Cute little fellah

[Tdm]

I know it's a little off topic - but here's some more cute little creatures that live on our complex.
Bottom right is a "Man Tree" - anybody else got one. Quite a few years ago (1995) there was a program on BBC called "The Plant" about plants that grew into people. Anybody else remember it. Would love to watch it again but have contacted the BBC and it wasn't released onto any other media, so can't get a copy. The Link to the program is :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00g8xtd

[scottmitchell74]

Congrats on the Union Mills!

[mr bachmann]

Geko on the track , wonder what will derail first Farish or UM ? 


alan

[scotsoft]

I know it's a little off topic - but here's some more cute little creatures that live on our complex.
Bottom right is a "Man Tree" - anybody else got one. Quite a few years ago (1995) there was a program on BBC called "The Plant" about plants that grew into people. Anybody else remember it. Would love to watch it again but have contacted the BBC and it wasn't released onto any other media, so can't get a copy. The Link to the program is :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00g8xtd

The link takes me to a page that tells me it is not available on iplayer, may I hazard a guess and think it may have had something to do with the 1st April?

cheers John.

[Tdm]

I know it's a little off topic - but here's some more cute little creatures that live on our complex.
Bottom right is a "Man Tree" - anybody else got one. Quite a few years ago (1995) there was a program on BBC called "The Plant" about plants that grew into people. Anybody else remember it. Would love to watch it again but have contacted the BBC and it wasn't released onto any other media, so can't get a copy. The Link to the program is :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00g8xtd

The link takes me to a page that tells me it is not available on iplayer, may I hazard a guess and think it may have had something to do with the 1st April?

cheers John.

Actually it was quite an interesting TV film production, and even featured a garden model railway in the story line. Mixture of science fiction, comedy, drama, and with a love interest.
Like I said earlier I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but it looks like that's not possible which is a shame.
In the film at the beginning the producers of a gardening program they were shooting had attached a mini-camcorder to the front of a model railway that ran round the garden being featured in the program.
As they were watching the live stream from the camcorder the track in front of the engine was suddenly uprooted by a "plant" that was growing a "human" body.

You would have to watch the whole film to see what happened next.

A little bit more about it can be found here :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plant_%28film%29