Go Anywhere Train

It occurred to me that despite having built up a large collection of Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland 009 stock over the last 30 years or so we have very few things which we use on all three of our layouts.

One of the exceptions is this delightful little consist.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have long regarded Britomart as the FR's most charming locomotive.

It arrived on the FR in 1965, having been bought by a group of FR staff and volunteers (some of whom read this blog) which puts it right in the era for our new Minffordd layout.

What makes Britomart almost unique among our fleet is that it has never changed colour.

Indeed, I understand it is still wearing the original coat of paint, resembling Great Northern Railway of Ireland blue, which it received when it came to the FR more than sixty years ago.

Unlike our England engines, Fairlies and Ladies which have changed colour, or some other aspect of their appearance, over the years it is perfectly correct whether it is running on Minffordd, Dduallt or Bron Hebog.

The vintage twin set 11 and 12 (I insist on calling them by those numbers!) are among the handful of inter-operable carriages we have in our collection because they have worn the green and ivory livery - or variations of it - in the 1960s but also now in the 21st Century.

Our latest incarnation of Britomart - for we have had three - is one of the super little Bachmann models which has had a DCC chip, speaker and stay alive crammed into it.

Four years ago the prototype for this conversion was given a chance to stretch its legs on Bron Hebog.

Ducks For Cover

It seems some of my blog readers have long memories...

Just when I thought I could put the resin away for a couple of weeks, at the end of another couple of weeks of casting kits for sale, a correspondent enquired whether I still had the moulds for brake compartment duckets?

They recalled when I was scratch building our latest models of FR carriages 11 and 12 I came up with an easy way of reproducing the tricky, curvy bits which stick out of the side of the van ends.

Fortunately for them I am a notorious hoarder and never knowingly throw away anything that 'might come in handy one day', and the moulds were stored in the miscellaneous box.

This time the intended target, I believe, are models of the WHR Pickering carriages.

* Correction - they are in fact models of 11 and 12

Convalescence Project

Himself believes he is on the brink of being able to hobble into back into his work room for a little light modelling.

He's decided to have a bash at finishing off and painting the new models of 11 & 12 which I made earlier this year.

The major outstanding item is the truss rods on 12.

It's almost impossible to get a proper view of them in most pictures of the carriage you see but fortunately it was in use at Super Power last month and I had a chance to crouch down and take some very low level snaps which should assist him.

Assuming he makes it to the work bench unscathed I'll let you know how he gets on.

Room At The Back

The remainder of the first class interior for number 11 has been completed.

As well as the observation section at the rear the carriage has a compartment behind with four seats arranged around the central corridor.

It doesn't show up so well in the photograph here but the right hand seat at the back is wider than the other three, and the sliding door leading into the guard's compartment is offset.

I do not know if once upon a time this was considered to be a double seat and two passengers used to be expected to squeeze themselves into it but I doubt that's still the case now. Is it?

This compartment is also the only access point into the carriage for passengers but there is a second door, with a frosted glass panel and engraved FR crest, which separates it from the observation saloon.

With both doors closed and the train underway it makes for a very convivial little space for you and your companions.

Face Off

The other side of the observation compartment on number 11 is finished now.

I'm always stuck by the way these two sets of seats face each other across the carriage - it's rather redolent of the trains on the London tube and Glasgow underground.

Or perhaps the inspiration wasn't taken from railway practice but the House of Commons?  It looks familiar, doesn't it, with those two forward (or backward?) facing seats by the bulkhead.

When the next generation of FR observation carriages were built, starting with 100, they had individual swivelling seats taking full advantage of the more generous loading gauge but, as I've written before, I think the cosy inside of 11 has got much more atmosphere.

Mersey Seat

I've spent a few days prevaricating about getting started on the interior for number 11 mainly on account of knowing that I was unlikely to have an opportunity in the near future to get it done in a oner.

Quite often I find knowing that I am unlikely to be able to get much done in a modelling session is a disincentive to get started in the first place.

Am I alone in that, I wonder?

Anyhow, the other night I told myself to stop faffing about and get on with it.

I didn't have very long and what time I did have was interrupted by getting the kids to bed and making the dinner, but this is what I managed to produce.

In case you didn't get the reference in the title, when number 11 was converted into an Observation Carriage in 1958 it was fitted with some ex-Mersey Rail seats, the ones at the observation end were fixed lengthways at either side.

Until the last overhaul there was a block of 4 seats on either side but it was always rather snug - and they do say that the average British tourist has become bulkier since the 1950's - so two seats have been sacrificed and a little breathing space created between them.

Eleventh Hour

Number 11 is, and I suspect will always be, my favourite FR carriage. It has an air of nobility about it and always looks so cosy.

First time passengers would probably say 'cramped' rather than 'cosy', I suspect, and there's an irrefutable logic in the FR's move towards palaces on wheels like the new observation car 150.

But, as I say, I have a soft spot for dear old 11, which has been in semi-retirement now for the best part of a quarter of a century, so I was very pleased to resume work on my latest model of it the other day.

I retrieved the pieces from the photo album where they'd been kept for the last couple of months and glued up the basic body rectangle and cut out the floor and false ceiling.

The album had protected them well but there was only so much it could do to resist the solvent which had inevitably put a slight curl into the bodysides.

This had been slightly complicated at the guards compartment ends where the resin duckets had been superglued into place and the chemicals all got a little confused.

Fortunately most of the curl goes 'in the way' and when the floor and roof are in position they force the bodysides to straighten out.

The next task is to add the roof skin and then probably begin work on the interior which was revised at the last rebuild to make the observation end even more spacious!

Duckets Done

Having received new supplies of resin (having first received new supplies of money courtesy of my employers) I've been able to try out casting some duckets for my new models of 11 and 12.

The results are very satisfactory.

The first couple of casts had to be scrapped as they came out of the mould too soft and became distorted. I think probably because the ambient temperature was too cold during the 'big chill' last week. (My study isn't heated as luxuriously as the rest of the house.)

Being the first use of new bottles of resin may also have something to do with it I suspect.

The second pair were left much longer in the mould - around an hour - and the cut outs in the side for the windows were supported and kept square while they cured fully over the next 24 hours.

Having been glued in place on the carriage sides a little extra beading detail was added to finish them off.

I think the parts are almost ready to be glued together into a carriage body shell now. How exciting!

Happy Endings

In my naivety I used to think that making another 11 and 12 set would be a 'quick fill-in project' whereas in fact they're requiring as much time and effort as any other FR or WHR carriage.

Putting the beading detail on the two ends of 11, for instance, has taken up a couple of evenings in the last week.

At the observation end the challenge is to make sure everything is symmetrical and that the vertical bars in the middle are indeed truly central.

On the brake end it is the two narrow windows on either side which have had time lavished on them, in particular the rounded corners at the top.

As I have described in more detail in the carriage building How To section on the blog the technique I was taught is to glue small triangles into the corners and then attack them with a round needle file.

On these old FR brake vans I've had to go through the process three times.

Once when fabricating the basic outline piece.  Then again when the second beading layer is added on top.

Finally the window droplight, which I bond on behind, also has rounded corners at the top  - damnit.

As I don't have any decent pictures showing the top of these droplights I did, at the eleventh hour, contact one of my FR sources in the vain hope that they would come back and tell me that all four corners of the droplights are square - like on any normal carriage! - but alas they didn't.

Hey ho, out with the file again!

Ducking The Issue

Little by little I've been adding the second layer of beading to the first of our new 'Garraway Twins' carriage 11.

If you're familiar with the carriage, though, you'll immediately notice something missing - the duckets at the side of the guard's compartment.

These are slightly tricky to make in styrene because you've got to get the plastic to hold the tight bend and the top and you also need to make sure you get a matching curve / slope on both sides of the carriage.

In fact when you factor in carriage 12 I also have to make four of them and get them all looking the same.

I did it before, of course, with my red liveried pair, but this time I thought instead I would make one master and cast the four I need from that.

I just haven't summoned up the motivation to make the master yet, that's all....

In Honour Of 'The Goog'

The death of FR legend Allan Garraway has inspired me to bring forward a project which has been on my wish list for a number of years now, to build updated models of the bogie brake twins 11 & 12.

We already have two pairs of models of these carriages.

The originals which we made 25 years ago from ancient whitemetal GEM kits and a pair I scratch built in styrene.

Both sets, however, are in all over red livery which is what the carriages wore in 1988, the original nominal date we set for our layout of Dduallt.

Since then the real carriages were first given two tone red / ivory livery in the early 1990's and then, when they were relieved of the duty in daily service repainted into the LNER tourist green / ivory colour scheme they had in the 1960's.

Recently both have been given heavy overhauls to return them to a more heritage condition which is how I will be modelling them.

At vintage galas they've become known as the 'Garraway Set' in honour of the man who was at the helm at Harbour station from the very first days of the revival in 1954 until the FR steamed back to Blaenau in the early 80s.

It was Allan who had the idea of turning the two 1880s vintage brake vans back to back and running them as a pair.

11 had windows cut in the end and was fitted with comfy ex-Mersey Rail seating which was sold at a premium as an Observation Carriage - the start of a new tradition on the FR.

Carriage 12 had a buffet counter installed to relieve the passengers of even more of their money on the move.

It was a stroke of genius by a man who famously organised the practical side of the rebirth of the FR in a no-nonsense fashion with what we might now call a 'refreshingly direct' approach to volunteers whom he preferred to be 'enthusiastic railwaymen' rather than 'railway enthusiasts'.

The FR today bears no comparison to what he was managing in the 50s and 60s when his sense and strength of character was what was needed to ensure a focus on the infrastructure and not whimsy.

In Allan's day communication with supporters was by telegram, not twitter, while the railway was run on a shoestring with ancient equipment which had to cope with fearsome peak traffic volumes and a limited period in which to generate income.

It was very different to the current era of year-round operating, diverse revenue streams and multi-million pound grants and intense competition for a share of the tourism market.

Making these two models will, for me, be a way of honouring the massive contribution Allan made to getting the FR where it is today.