Seven Steamers

We’ve completed the loco line up for the show in Glasgow with the sound chipping of the 43XX which was a gift from the Engineering Consultant on the occasion of the layout’s debut last October.

These Churchward moguls probably aren’t the first class which comes to mind when you think of Cambrian steam but there’s plenty of photo evidence of them around the Porthmadog area in the 1960s.

It joins our existing ex-GWR allocation including the maid of all work, the Collett Goods, which is one of those in the stock box awaiting weathering.

Representative of the earliest years of our 1960s period is the Dukedog, a younger-than-it-looks class which was seeing out its final days.

This Bachmann model is limited by being rather light on its feet and can struggle a little with the gradients and drag on our tight curves, so loadings have to be managed carefully.

Making a rare foray up the coast line our iconic Cambrian engine, a Manor.

This period witnessed the changeover to the new Standard classes.

Our trio are made up of the Standard 4MT tender we featured a few days ago. 

The sole tank engine in our fleet, for now, is the 3MT.

And another needs-to-be-dirtied is the 2MT, not to be confused with its near relative the ex-LMS Ivatt design.

Minffordd Update: Bachmann Bargain

You don't have to read much railway modelling social media to find people bemoaning the runaway inflation in the prices of toy trains and accusing the manufacturers of naked profiteering.

There’s not necessarily respite for the wallet to be found in the secondhand market with some of the big retailers selling pre-loved models at top end prices online, as well as some ambitious asking prices on the auction sites.

Recently I've found the best bargains the old-fashioned way at local model railway exhibitions, such as this Bachmann Collet Goods - one of the re-worked models with a decent chassis (not split frame) although not new enough to be dcc ready.

It wasn't so much going for a song as an entire operetta!

How much did I pay?

£25!

"I think it's priced to sell", remarked the person manning the stall at Perth as I quickly snapped it up.

As always, caveat emptor applies, but at that price I figured I wouldn't be too upset if it turned out to be a lemon.

Himself took it into works for a 'fitness to run' exam, and sure enough he found the mechanism gummed up with congealed grease, and he says it took him most of the afternoon to strip it down and clean it up, but it runs sweetly enough.

More work is required before it is suitable for use on Minffordd, however.

In the first instance, when he got it home and discovered one of the buffers on the tender is missing.

We're thinking, though, that we might have carelessly knocked this off unknowingly as we pulled it out of the box to inspect it behind the layout at the show.

So Himself has had to buy a new tender body from the Bachmann Spares site which cost almost as much as the locomotive!

The other issue is that the tender is very unhappy on anything except the widest radius curve, which is not very good in our pokey fiddle yard.

This is not the case with other six-wheel tenders in our locomotive collection, so we suspect there might be something going on with the wheelsets.

Further tinkering is required.