Well hardly as sleek, fast, or as powerful as the real life ten-wheeler Engine No. 382, known as “Cannonball”, that with its engineer were immortalised in the ballad of Casey Jones.

When I was growing up in the early sixties there was not much choice on TV, and after school Casey Jones was one of our favourites. Starring Alan Hale, more famous for his role as the skipper on Gilligan’s Isle, he had roles in hundreds of Westerns, and in later life opened a restaurant and a travel service.

Some time ago I picked up these trains from KMart, the same store I bought the ruined 1/43 scale cars from last week. Even though two were meant to be 1/43 scale and one was meant to be 1/60 they were all a bit small, and so I have yet to find a use for them. I can see the grandchildren ending up with them next visit.

Here you can see the difference between “cannonball” and the others.

Anyway back to Gotham Grease and Gunks “Cannonball”.

All of these models are from Sarissa Precision’s railway section. I am pleased with the outcome but building them was by far the pleasure I had hoped. Poor 4pt printed instructions did not help. Like most of Sarissa’s models they were all too detailed with small parts, but that is a pet bugbear of mine. If I want a detailed kit I would go for a plastic model not a “chunky” mdf one!

Since having a “Triang” train set as a child I have always been a frustrated railway modeller! Now I have one! Even if it is just made of wood and is a static display!

Finally after having these models for two years “I am a steamin and a rollin”!