The Pendolino

I remember writing that life had got busy. At the time my largest customer was based in Birmingham, and I was spending a fair amount of time (as were many of my team) commuting up the West Coast Mainline. I became accustomed to the 8.10 from Euston, and I was usually impressed with the service. I’m sure I mentioned (more than once!) to everyone who travelled with me that I had grown up in a house that I could see the WCML trains from. When I decided to leave Symbian and take some sabbatical time this year, I was surprised to be presented with the Hornby model of the Pendolino I’d spent so much time on.

I enjoyed model trains as a kid, and as an adult I went along to the odd show, and procrastinated about building a layout ‘someday’. Laying the new trainset out on the floor rekindled my interest, and I’ve now spent the first few weeks of my sabbatical building that ‘someday layout’. I doubt that was the effect my colleagues expected, but thank you all, it’s been a blast!

Incidentally my picture doesn’t do credit to the model Hornby have created, which is a nice replica of the real thing – complete with great details like tilting around curves.