ROTY - Part 3

And so to the final part of our review of the year.

September

The three days we spent in the Goods Shed at Dinas exhibiting Bron Hebog and Dduallt side by side were the highlight of the year for Himself and I.

It was a major effort to have both the layouts there and we couldn't have done it without the support of a great team of helpers, so thank you once again to Graham, Max, Huw and Chris.

We also gave a debut at Dinas to the water tank wagon which has now been lettered and varnished by Himself.

October

After the upheaval of the exhibition and the effort to complete models to use on the layout I spent the early weeks of October catching up on a backlog of orders for my South African wagon kits which I cast in resin.

I also found the time to put the finishing touches to the farmhouse which had been shown incomplete on the layout at Dinas.

November

11 months after I'd begun work on them Himself finished painting carriages 11 and 12.

We had a little disagreement about the colour he chose for the droplights.

I won in the end and they've since been repainted in a shade that is more to my liking.

He spent a number of weeks convalescing from an 'intermediate overhaul' but once he was able to get back into the workshop he painted a couple of Barns which had been waiting in the queue for the paint shop for about 5 years!

December

In recent weeks I've been working through the backlog of buildings which the Artistic Director drew up plans for earlier this year.

One of them, which only took a couple of days to knock up, was this small outhouse which sits next to the farm house.



We rounded off the year with another of the projects which was begun at the turn of the year.

Himself had done a rough paint job on Conway Castle ahead of the appearance at Dinas but it still requires lining out.

His first attempt involved some home-painted and home-cut waterslide transfers to match the two-tone green colours with commercial yellow lines on top.

We weren't entirely happy with them and he's going to try again with some even thinner ones.

That's just one of the projects lined up for the year ahead.

All that remains is for us to wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for coming here to read the blog in 2016 and look forward to welcoming you in 2017.

A String Of Barns

The two new carriages have had their brass bits and pieces added and given a coat of varnish.

The shot above shows 105 (the one with the bog in the middle) and below is 106.

Barn aficionados will be able to spot many differences between these carriages which were built more than 35 years apart.

(The real ones, not the models)

Even more variety can be seen in these snaps of the new carriages posed with another couple of carriages from our collection of Barns posed on the spiral.

For those who are interested the other models you can see here are 104 and 107, all the Barn saloons in one train.

Beautiful Barns

Four years after they were built our latest pair of Barns are almost ready to join the fleet.

For those who are not dedicated FR carriage-spotters - and we are a select bunch - I should explain that what we have here are models of 105 and 106 in their current condition.

105 is the last of the truly original 1960's Barns, although it is seen here after a very comprehensive rebuild with a toilet in place of its 1st class compartment in the centre and new style half windows replacing the orginal louvres - it was the last of the carriages to retain these I believe.

It still bears witness to its original, and somewhat pioneering condition, when it had a chemical bog at the bottom end of the carriage - there is still an extra window pillar to be seen on the seaward (or engine)side of the carriage.

106 is a total rebuild of the original carriage with a completely new body but to the same outline.

It was followed by another new Barn, 107, before the advent of the super-sized, Super Barn design.

Both these carriages are running on my new brass / resin FR bogies (available to buy from Narrow Planet, by the way) and they just require the fitting of brass grab rails and a coat of varnish to be declared fully finished.

Getting My Way

The battle of the colour brown appears to have been resolved in my favour.

Himself has sent me a snap of the current state of progress with painting 105 & 106 to see if I approve.

I understand he borrowed another pair of eyes to choose the colour and picked something described as 'German camouflage red brown'.

Frankly I don't care what it's called, I'm just relieved that this time it looks like something made of wood rather than the distinctly pink hue that ended up on 11 & 12.

Speaking of which, I have employed some gentle persuasion and he says he's going to go over the offending areas on those carriages with this colour.

So I've got my way in the end.

Barn Backlog

Himself is cracking on with the Barns which have been waiting for years in the queue for painting.

He tells me that he's forgotten how simple and straightforward these are to paint without the inset doors or the fancy handrails that adorn the Super Barns.

They're looking good so far I reckon.

Bigger Bogies

Rather than simply watching paint dry Himself had been working on completing another long-term project which involves some of my new FR carriage bogies.

What they're going under is this pair:

They are replacements for 105 in its cuurrent condition with a toilet compartment in the centre where the 1st class used to be and the reborn 106.

Both our existing models of these two are in 1980s all-over red livery so obviously of no use at all on Bron Hebog.