Royal Train

Now we're truly time travelling with plans for another curiosity piece to run on Minffordd, depicting one of the most unlikely trains to traverse the Cambrian Coast Line.

I have surrendered to a temptation to recreate the liberation of Princess Royal class 6203 Princess Margaret Rose from captivity at the former Butlins holiday camp near Pwllheli.

After withdrawal by BR the huge Stanier pacific was bought by the famous holiday camp entrepreneur and moved to North Wales in 1963, which is bang in the middle of when we are modelling Minffordd.

Unfortunately for us, it arrived at Penychain via the former LMS line to Afon Wen, and never passed through Minffordd.

Twelve years later, however, when it was moved again, this time to Derby, the route north to Bangor had been closed and in a very bold move - given what was later to emerge about the state of Barmouth Bridge! - it was carefully towed away along the Cambrian Coast, the movement being captured in a oft-shared photo of it about to pass under the FR at Minffordd, which I have recreated above.

Of course, having happened in 1975, this is preposterous train to run our layout showing the station in 1960s condition, which is exactly why we intend to do it!

For the move the 4-6-2 loco was sandwiched between two long bogie barrier wagons, to add brake force as well as to spread the load.

Those of you who know about the locomotive's history will have already noticed that the one in the photographs above is not only the wrong engine but also in the wrong livery.

We know.

Before committing to the project I wanted to check that a enormous beast of an engine such as the Princess would fit on the layout, and for this I've used one we've already got to hand.

It does foul the platform, but only because it has been fitted with some steps in front of the bogie, and where some of the pipework hangs down beneath the cab.

If these were chopped off it  appears that it will negotiate our very tight corners successfully.

So I have taken the plunge and bought a cheap 1980's vintage, tender-drive, Hornby model in LMS livery on a well-known action site.

The intention is that I will be able easily to disengage the motor to leave us with a towable dead model.

An added benefit is that it also gives us an excuse to use our BR blue class 24 with its 'TOPS' number on the layout - because if you're going to abandon historical accuracy you might as well go big!

Mucking It Up

Our BR Sulzer Type 2 - or Class 24 as most of us probably call them -  is one of the staples of our Cambrian fleet on Minffordd.

It's a reliable, smooth runner, with a very nice sound file, too.

The only niggle is that until now it's been far too obviously clean.  

Too obviously 'out of the box'.

In the last few months I've been experimenting with weathering, which was quite a brave step for me because I was always fearful of ruining good models with incompetent attempts to dirty them up.

I do have access to airbrushes, but I've yet to use one, and so I've been having a go with dry brushing with acrylics instead.

I'm very aware my efforts bear no comparison whatsoever with what modellers blessed with much greater artistic talent are able to achieve, but I think I've at least succeeded in making them look as if they've got a few miles on the clock.

On the 24 I always thought the thing which really stood out like a sore thumb was that spotlessly clean, light grey roof.

From pictures I've found it seems they managed to keep the flanks looking reasonably clean most of the time.

We still have a number of locos in the steam fleet which also need some attention - in particular the Collett Goods and the Standard 2MT - but I feel they are less well suited to a dry brushing approach and it might be that I need to get some lessons in spraying, or save up to pay someone to do them properly.

Either way, it's unlikely to get done before the Glasgow show at the end of this month, so please avert your eyes if you don't care much for shiny steam engines.

Down In The Yard

You reach a moment with every layout build where you start to get a glimpse (with a bit of help from your imagination) of what it is going to look like when it is complete.

The Minffordd project seems to have taken a bit step forward in the last week or so.

The FR overbridge has been given a coat of primer which I think demonstrates that it's definitely going to look the part, and the standard gauge track has begun to be fixed down.

The photo of a 24 nosing its way into the exchange yard gives a hint of what's to come, I hope.

Now Himself has turned his attention to forming the trackbed on the other side of the layout which involves some very complex changes of level and gradient as the FR track spirals down to meet the Cambrian.

Even at this stage you can step back and get a sense of how the whole scene is going to work.

I hope those who know the location will be able to squint a little and recognise this as the view from the window of an FR train crossing the bridge.