Bron Hebog For Sale!

If you're reading this, then the click bait has worked!

The deliberately (but only slightly) misleading title refers to a property advert which was drawn to my attention the other day.

Back at the very start of the layout project more than 25 years ago we decided that it would be underselling the scale of what we were attempting to call it merely 'Beddgelert'.

That's also been done before, which was another reason.

A former team member, who we've always referred to here as the Artistic Director, noticed on maps there was a place named 'Bron Hebog', and suggested this would work well for the layout because it described the wider area and not just the station.

Currently the property called Bron Hebog is up for sale by auction at the end of July and you can find the listing here.

©Rightmove

I can confirm we won't be making a bid, unless we win the lottery. (Which would be unlikely because we don't play...)

Looking through the listing, however, is does look like the property would be the kind of place which might have the potential to be the 'forever home' which Bron Hebog the layout needs to find.

As we've stated before, neither myself nor Himself, have the space in our homes to set it up in full, and so it seems destined to either stay packed up in its travelling storage racks, or if no other home can be found for it one day broken up.

I note the Bron Hebog property includes a pair of outbuildings.  

©Rightmove

As they exist neither has the width required for the layout but you can daydream how it might be possible to replace them with a single, wider building on the same footprint  (although I am aware planning in the national park can be a little more involved than elsewhere.

That sort of space, however, is sort of the home that Bron Hebog will need to find if it is to have a long-term future as a working layout.

Model Train Movies

As part of the process of reawakening this blog from its recent slumber I've updated the page featuring videos of our layouts filmed over the years.

There's some cracking footage which has been lovingly filmed, edited and posted online.

Some of the films are fifteen minutes long, and you could certainly lose a happy hour watching all of these films in their entirity.

You'll find them all on the Layout Videos page.

The Cream Of Manchester

Five months ago when I wrote the previous post on this blog - like the famous legend on the FR timetables  'Train Services Suspended' - I left open the possibility that I may post again.

As I wrote at the time, I had simply run out of things to say.

Well, after our experience at the Manchester MRS exhibition at the weekend, I've found I do, once again, have something to say, and it would be the right thing to say it here.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came to spend time watching the layout, to share their thoughts on it (and the prototype) and to those who went on to put an X in the box on the voting form for the Best Layout.

We were beyond honoured to receive the shield for this on the Sunday afternoon, having on Saturday evening been judged the best in show by the members of MMRS - the first awards for Bron Hebog.

To receive these awards was incredibly humbling given the remarkable standard of all the layouts at the show.

There was not one on display which did show exceptional skill and dedication - with many of them being to EM or P4 standards (in 4mm) or finescale 2mm - and the four of us who travelled with the layout were astonished to hear its name being called out as the winner at the presentations.

(A shame we weren't allowed to take the cup and shield home with us for the next 12 months...)

I can't make any promises about how regular posts on this blog might be, but what I can say is that I found the whole weekend - surrounded by so many enthusiastic and appreciative people - to be restorative and cathartic.

Can't wait for Warley next year!

Warley, Baby!

I want to begin by thanking everyone who left supportive comments on our social media after the last post about Model Rail Scotland.

I appreciate your forbearance scrolling through while I let off some steam, but after effectively giving up five days (including some precious holiday allowance) and coming out of it feeling your efforts were unappreciated - by a few people you’d hoped would have paid more attention - I think a little strop can be forgiven.

Instead let’s move on with some more positive news, and we were all delighted when an offer that was intimated to us at the SEC was confirmed in writing: Bron Hebog will be going to Warley in 2023!

The Bron Hebog crew and FR volunteers at Warley 2004 with LT while exhibiting Ddaullt

This won’t be first visit to the NEC for Bron Hebog.

Back in 2009 we were asked by the FR to bring along the station boards which were still at a very early stage of development, to complement their display.

The start of the Cwm Cloch bend was there, and the northern entrance to Goat Tunnel was landscaped, but also  still just painted brown plaster.

At the time I recall lots of people commenting that they looked forward to seeing it when it’s finished.

14 years is a long time to wait...I hope they’re not disappointed.

Second Album Syndrome?

I've had a couple of days to digest our experience at Model Rail Scotland, which was the first time operating Bron Hebog at a show in over two years.

I very much enjoyed the camaraderie of our team over the three days, and it was lovely to receive so many appreciative comments from visitors, both for the layout and for this blog.

But ever since the doors closed, we packed up and came home, I've been left with the nagging feeling that for as many people who loved it - indeed told us it was their only reason for coming along - it seemed as if there were as many who were distinctly unmoved by it, some of them among the railway modelling fraternity.

It's not the first time I've noticed this since we began taking Bron Hebog out, and it's starting to feel like a band struggling to follow up on a chart-topping debut album. 

25 years ago it seemed like Dduallt was feted everywhere it went, but there was a big gap between it coming off the circuit and the follow up appearing.

And like that hit band who spent time locked away in the recording studio, we've gone back on the road and discovered it's just the hard core groupies who remain.

In the days since the SEC I've been chewing over why Bron Hebog doesn't seem to capture the imagination in the same way, and I've settled on a few theories.

It's too big

At 20ft across and 10ft deep it's pretty large for an exhibition layout, and a monster for 4mm narrow gauge, especially for what is, essentially, a single track line with a passing loop.

While the groupies might like looking at an unfolding Welsh upland landscape - and if you're reading this consider yourself part of the fan club! - I suspect many people seeing it afresh see just a dull, barren vastness before them.

Not enough action

This follows on from the previous point. 

Due to its size, the simplest of track layouts, and the tortoise-like nature of the narrow gauge, trains take a long time to traverse Bron Hebog.

It can take 2 minutes for a train to snake its way from the station into the upper fiddle yard, and as a long again for one to return, plus all the fiddle yard time.

In WHR terms we operate an absurdly intensive timetable on the layout, but compared others it must seem woefully pedestrian.

No USP

When it appeared Dduallt was quite a novelty, and it has one thing that make's it cute and memorable - the under / overbridge on the spiral.

Now, like me, you might rather like watching a Garratt and its prototypical long rake of carriages snaking through reverse curves and performing not one, but two, full 180s on a climb up a gradient, through a tunnel and disappearing into a deep cutting, but I'm starting to suspect many people don't share that simple pleasure.

The sound of silence

In the decades since we built Dduallt railway modelling has moved on, and digital tech is now mainstream, but we're still rooted in the silent dc past.

A layout which doesn't arouse your ears as well as your eyes is starting on the back foot.

A level playing field

Once upon a time it really stood out if you were operating a layout entirely stocked with kit built and scratch built stock, or if you'd worked on super-detailing ready to run stock.

Now even the most brilliant modellers - which we are not - will struggle to match what it is possible to buy in a box.

Location, location, location

And last, and by no means least, I suspect this is the effect of moving to the other end of the country.

I think it's fair to say there is much less interest in narrow gauge in Scotland.

We're probably going to have to get used to that feeling of leaving a lot of our audience underwhelmed.

Showtime Again!

A very exciting email arrived in my inbox at the weekend confirming not only the return of the Model Rail Scotland exhibition in Glasgow in February, but also an invitation to bring Bron Hebog.

Needless to say we jumped at the opportunity to show the layout for the first time in nearly two and a half years.

(I don't mind admitting that there have been times during this pandemic when I wondered whether we ever would again?)

On a personal level it seems quite weird to be thinking about returning to those giant SEC halls for something as frivolous as a model railway exhibition.

For most of 2020 the place had been transformed into an enormous emergency Covid-19 hospital, and right now the place is in the process of being turned into Fort Knox as the venue for the Cop26 climate change summit.

Come February, all being well, our Backwoods Garratts will spend three days coffee-grinding their way around the S-bends with what must be the longest and heaviest 009 trains you'll see running on any layout in the UK.

It's a great show, and Glasgow's a great city.  It will wonderful to get back to exhibiting, and we'd love to see you there!

Guest Blog :View From The Fiddle Yard

By the Engineering Consultant

If you can remember back to the blog post On Hold of Wednesday 11 December you may recall that it was suggested that the Engineering Consultant’s management of the fiddle yards on Bron Hebog left something to be desired.

Somewhat perturbed by this extravagant suggestion the Engineering Consultant has been persuaded to pen some notes on the operation of said fiddle yards.

We know that Bron Hebog is a model of Beddgelert station and its environs on the Welsh Highland Railway.

If there were to be a league table of the ratio of on-view points to modelled area then Bron Hebog would surely be at the bottom weighing in at a miserly 3.83 sq.m / point (ignoring the operating well).

This is well illustrated by the view from one end of the layout when it was first erected in its ‘complete’ format at the REC show in Woking in September 2014.

By contrast the fiddle yard area has a ratio of 0.26 sq.m / point which is a good indicator of the importance of the fiddle yards to the operation of the layout.

Part of the ‘Porthmadog’ end fiddle yard is seen below.

Beddgelert itself is a passing loop on the Welsh Highland Railway.

The next passing loop towards Caernarfon is at Rhyd Ddu which is at the foot of one of the popular walking routes up Snowdon.

The next passing loop in the opposite direction towards Porthmadog is at Pont Croesor where the Glaslyn Osprey visitors centre can be found.

The official Working Timetable running times from Beddgelert to Rhyd Ddu and Pont Croesor are 22 and 23 minutes respectively.

This means that having left Beddgelert the next train should not appear from either direction for approximately 50 minutes allowing for single line token exchanges.

Now Bron Hebog features some exquisite scale modelling of the railway stock and surrounding landscape but it would unrealistic to operate the layout to scale time.

Therefore, the prime objective of the fiddle yard operators is to have another train ready to despatch as soon as the previous train has arrived,  quietly overlooking the fact that this should not happen for a further 30 to 40 minutes.

The overall layout of each fiddle yard is best illustrated by photographs of the two control panels. The first is the Rhyd Ddu or the Caernarfon end.

The second is ‘Pont Croesor’ or the Porthmadog end.

Each yard is essentially split into two halves – one for dealing with the long WHR and FR passenger sets and the other for heritage trains, freight trains and other special workings.

The larger part of each yard consists of two long loops with a central release road which can also be used to hold a train, if necessary.

Each of the two smaller yards is slightly different, the ‘Porthmadog’ yard having an extra siding often used for stabling the Bridge Inspection train, the full sized version of which is occasionally used by the Engineering Consultant on the full sized WHR.

One important part of the design of the yards are the ‘kick-back’ roads which are used to stable spare locomotives waiting their next turn of duty.

It is important to limit the handling of rolling stock so we do our best not to use ‘crane shunting’.

The two ‘kick-back’ roads of the ‘Rhyd Ddu’ fiddle yard are illustrated.

Similarly, NGG16 138 can be seen resting between turns below.

The fiddle yard controls are shown on the photo of the Pont Croesor or Porthmadog below.

The seven main routes into the yard are selected by a rotary switch and the necessary point motors are actuated by pushing the large black button.

The route set is shown by green leds. Thus the route into the Bridge Inspection train siding 3a is shown set up in the photo.

Auxiliary points are operated by the yellow levers.

Isolation of sidings is by the silver levers.

The red lever at the right of the photo switches control of the yard between the Beddgelert station operator (main) and the fiddle yard operator.

It is normal practice for the main operator to drive trains in and out of the yard.

As soon as a departing train has passed the section break control is returned to the yard operator and they can begin disposing of the engine from the last arrival and shunt a fresh engine onto the next departure.

There is not much time to do this in the Porthmadog yard but the Caernarfon yard operator has a more leisurely time as there is a scale 1.5km of railway to Beddgelert station.

Virtually all of the stock run is made up into accurate sets.

Some of these may require prior authorisation from the FR Chief Mechanical Engineer if they were to run on the full size Welsh Highland Railway because of the ruling 1:40 gradient.

The task of setting up all of the stock takes over 30 minutes so this is a key part of the exhibiting procedure.

Hopefully, this note has given you some idea about the importance of the fiddle yards to the smooth operation of Bron Hebog.

The yard operators can usually be persuaded to demonstrate a particular locomotive whilst the previous train is travelling towards Beddgelert station.

Why not come along and see how organised everything is at our next outing in Perth in June when the Engineering Consultant will be absent!

2019 - Part 3

The summer saw us taking Dduallt for its third showing in nine months, after receiving an invitation to represent the Greenock club at the show in Perth.

This was is up there among one of the best in the country and we're very much looking forward to returning with Bron Hebog in 2020.

June also saw an unexpected opportunity to purchase another Backwoods double fairlie, which Himself duly snapped up and straight away began starting work on a James Spooner, being careful not to get ahead of the real one under construction at Boston Lodge.

The Gladstone Car was also finished with transfers and the illusion of curtains in the central saloon now in place.

August

We didn't waste any time starting on the next of our WHHR carriages.

Himself soldered up a Worsley Works kit for the buffet car and I was given the job of knocking up an interior in styrene.

James Spooner now had its bogies and firebox (motorbox) complete.

Hot on the heels of the Buffet Car was another brass body shell for the Ashbury corridor carriage in its original form, which we're doing up as the replica built for the WHHR.

September

There was a little more scenic work done on Bron Hebog ready for its next outing in Greenock in the autumn, with more trees being planted.

By now the WHHR carriages were already being painted.

And Gelert was in the final stages of painting and lining with a lot of extra details being added to the 3D body to really set it off.

Aerial View

While waiting for the next update from the workbench I thought you might like to see an unusual view of the layout.

The venue for the Greenock show is a Kirk (church) which comes complete with a balcony around three sides which provides the perfect spot to get a bird’s eye view of proceedings.

It’s the only way to get a full appreciation of the size of Bron Hebog

Incidentally, this blog has now recorded over three quarters of a million page views, so a heartfelt thank you to everybody who clicks through to read it.

You Tube Train

This was one of the more unusual trains we've ever run on Bron Hebog.

I suspect many of you have already guessed that the object on the wagon in front of Taliesin is a miniature digital camera.

It was being used to record a 'driver's eye view' sequence on the layout by a model railway You Tuber who posts highlights packages of exhibitions.

Bron Hebog is towards the end of the film but I would encourage you to pour yourself a cup of tea and watch the whole thing through because there were many great layouts on show in Greenock.

Golden Garratt

The only time we ever get to put the whole of Bron Hebog together is the rare occasions - a couple of times a year if we're lucky, when it gets invited to exhibitions.

If we've set up on the Friday evening the hour or so before the public get let in on the Saturday is our chance to have a little play for ourselves and so at the weekend our latest Garratt, 130, was taken for a spin around the S bends.

It's still very much in the running-in stage, with the front unit working much harder than the rear, and its test run came to a premature conclusion when the back one went on strike at the station throat.

I'm confident it won't be anything too serious.

Timehop

Social media - and its menacing algorithms - reminds me that it’s 4 years since we took Bron Hebog and Dduallt to show at the Welsh Highland Great and Small weekend at Dinas.

It was an epic weekend, and a huge undertaking, and most likely not something we’ll ever repeat.

In some ways I’m astonished that its been that long since we ‘completed’ the layout in structural terms, but the recent work Himself has been doing with more trees brings home to me how sparse the layout was back then.

It’s something very evident in this shot of the Funkey from four years ago.

Our next outing with it will be in five weeks time in Greenock.

Review Of The Year - Part 3

July

And so to the second half of 2018 where there was much excitement at the arrival of our first ready-to-run model, the Bachmann 590 Baldwin.

I've never made any secret of my enthusiasm for the mainstream manufacturers discovering 009.

The intensity of the debate online around this has been second only to Brexit, but unlike the latter subject I can see only positives in this development for our scale.

I'm hugely excited about the next project in the pipeline, the small quarry Hunslets (especially the cab-less versions) and for what this innovative firm might decide to do next.

In this month I began work on a project which had been on the back burner for a while, to make models of the hybrid BZ wagons made at Boston Lodge for infrastructure trains on the FR.

I decided to make masters and cast them in resin, even though only two have been produced so far and they are far from identical.

July was also the month where, quite by chance, I discovered that the last two Backwoods NGG16 kits produced were available to buy.

We had to dig deep to avert the possibility of them being offered for sale in an online auction, but we'd been looking for a number of years for the opportunity to complete our Garratt fleet and it was too good an opportunity to miss.

August

The first of the BZ wagons had been cast and was being put together.

The fold-flat end doors are a right pain because I had to scratch build the triangular support brackets in styrene, which was a very fiddly job.

Himself had been putting together a Chivers kit of a tiny Hunslet diesel to replace our model of Harold, the Boston Lodge shunter, which had been stolen when we were exhibiting Dduallt in Leeds a number of years ago.

And to have a bit of fun for when we took Bron Hebog to show at the Welsh Highland 'Super Power' weekend I decided to add a very contemporary scenic feature - a reminder of the day when a driver tried his luck racing a Garratt to Bron Hebog crossing - and the Garratt won!

September

Himself had taken an executive decision to invest in panoramic photographic backscenes for the show at Dinas.

The result was very effective indeed!

We had a fabulous time - as we always do - showing Bron Hebog in the goods shed, this time in its finished state.

The Lynton and Barnstaple Baldwin Lyn was the star attraction on the railway and Himself pulled out the stops to get the Backwoods kit we had been given running.

Once again we couldn't resist being cheeky and double-heading it with Lyd knowing that the real locomotives were not being allowed anywhere near each other that weekend.

Back home the production line of superbarns continued with a start being made on assembling number 120.

Delightful Dinas

We've returned from a terrific three days showing Bron Hebog at its second home - the goods shed at Dinas Station - during WHR Superpower 2018.

It was great to see so many familiar faces and also get to meet a number of fellow modellers who we've only ever had contact with in the virtual world until now - a couple of them even brought along some special guest locomotives which had a cheeky run around the layout.

There'll be more to tell you about in the coming days but for new here are some extended video highlights for those of you who weren't able to come along, and to enjoy again for those who did.



Thanks again to our friends on the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railway for inviting us along and looking after us so well over the weekend.

Ready To Go

Bron Hebog is all packed up and ready to head 'home' to the top left hand corner of Wales this weekend.

The layout is supposed to be up and running in Dinas goods shed from lunchtime tomorrow (Friday) which means we're going to have to hit the road early in the morning for the 350 mile journey.

We're talking radio breakfast newsreader early, so it's a good job I'm used to it.

We're both very much looking forward to it.

Will we see you there?

Spy In The Sky

Nothing much new to report today except I spotted something the other day which I thought you might enjoy seeing.

While Himself has got parts of Bron Hebog set up in the garage to realign the board joints it's left some of the boards which are not being used standing upright around the edge of the room.

(Usually they are stored in pairs, face to face.)

The one at the south end of the station with the Oberon Wood scene on it caught my eye.

I realised that you when you have the layout set up you never really get the chance to get a birds-eye from directly overhead, so I took this snap.

If you'll forgive my immodesty I think it looks pretty damned good.

Reverse Engineering

One of the things we understood would be crucial when we began building Bron Hebog was that on such a large layout, with a sinuous trackplan with many board joints - both end to end and side to side - was to make sure they were always perfectly aligned.

That's why Himself invested in some very high quality German engineering dowels to try to ensure that the boards would always fit together accurately regardless of whether the wood had shrunk or expanded with the season.

So imagine our consternation on the day of the exhibition at Bressingham to discover that one of the track joints, which is slightly on a skew, had moved ever so slightly during the night.

It wasn't much but it was enough to derail one particular Garratt pony truck and occasionally a bogie too.

Considering what to do about this he came to the conclusion that although we had fitted a system of dowels all around the layout they were low down on the frames, but much of the trackbed sits quite a few inches higher on an embankment.

It seemed that maybe there was still potential for this to move off the vertical?

His solution is to fit another series of dowels just below the trackbed.

However, this is easier said than done because these are supposed to be fitted - for precise location - by drilling all the way through the two pieces you are connecting.

This is not possible on a finished layout where you can't get a drill up behind and underneath.

He's just had to do it very carefully from the outside instead.

Let's hope it does the trick.

Return Visit

I suspect that some readers have guessed this already but we're delighted to be able to announce that we'll be bringing Bron Hebog back to the top left hand corner of Wales, and specifically, Dinas Goods Shed, later this year.

We've been invited to have the layout as one of the extra attractions at this year's Superpower event over the weekend 14 - 16 September which is themed on celebrating 21 years since the opening of the first section between Caernarfon and Dinas in 1997.

The team are very much looking forward to bringing it back to what has almost been it's second home and seeing some familiar faces again (although we expect a number of locals will be casting a very critical eye over some of the new features, like the completed estate scene, since it was last on show here in 2015.)