Hi Martin, re Bob Symes, I am going back a long way here, into the 70s to be exact. Bobs loco worked well but he couldn't stop it glitching. I stuck it on the bench and fired it up and found it simply needed loads of supression capacitors fitted in various places, those olddynamos were quite electrically noisy plus there were plenty of metal to metal joints everywhere. It ran using 27Mhz am radio and wastherefore more susceptible to this kind of interference.
After much testing and running up and down the workshop, proceedings were brought to an abrupt end when a clutch of axe weilding firemen burst into the workshop demanding to know 'where the fire was'. The workshop was full of smoke from the glow motor and a fireman pointed out that the fire alarm had been sounded back at the station. It was then noticed that the fire detector in the ceiling was blinking and had been activated by Bobs engine!
I met him about six years ago at the Brighton model show and had a quick chat, he's obviously getting on a bit now but was still active and had not lost his fascination with the hobby.
Chris