Model Rail Scotland Debuts

Excitement is building ahead of us taking Bron Hebog to Model Rail Scotland in Glasgow in a month's time, which will be our first show in more than two years.

While I was thinking about that the other day it occurred to me that there must be a number of models we built in that time which have not been seen in public yet (aside from on this blog and our social media).

I stopped counting when I got to 15.

So I thought you might like a reminder of what's among the new stuff.

The steam engines include NGG/16 130, which is all new, and in the last two years Himself has got round to painting Lyn and Welsh Pony.

The diesel fleet has been bolstered by the recent arrival of our green Vale of Ffestiniog, and the duplicate of Conway Castle in the livery in which it served with distinction on WHR construction trains and as the Dinas shunter for many years.

Now, we also have the locomotive which replaced it, the big yellow Baguley number 9, and at the other end of the spectrum the former Boston Lodge gofer Harold.

New carriages include 2048 and the fourth of the opulent observation cars Gwyrfai, as well the much less salubrious Ashbury replica 21 and the Pickering brake for the WHHR excursions / incursions. 

If Rule One is enacted at any point over the three days at the SEC you might also be lucky to see some of our new tow-along amusements including a derelict Livingston Thompson on ambulance bogies, and a freshly un-plinthed Princess.

Both are completely out of era - being 1980s representations - and completely out of place on the Welsh Highland section, but you never know...

More prototypical is a deconstructed NGG/16 loaded onto DZ flat wagons for transfer between Boston Lodge and Dinas.

This little tableau is a consequence of us being offered the chance to buy the remains of a Backwoods kit which someone made such a Horlicks of building that the best thing to be done with it was recover any parts which could be used as spares and turn what was left into a conversion piece.

2020 Review - Part 3

July 

 

As we moved into the second half of the year Livingston Thompson had been painted, lined and weathered and taken for its first test runs on Bron Hebog with the formation recreating the train when it was first towed from Minffordd to Blaenau Ffestiniog to try and kick start the restoration.

 

After a false start that ended up with the locomotive on display at the NRM in York where it remains.

 

The Double Fairlie story continued with Himself trying to keep pace with Boston Lodge on progress with James Spooner.

 

 

 

We're doing out best to adapt a Backwoods brass kit - although there will have to be the inevitable compromise on scale. 

On my workbench I was getting to grips with a new project in resin....

 

August 

Those Hula Hoop shapes were turned into the body of Maenofferen water tank wagon which sits on an extended 3 ton slate waggon chassis.

 

 

Almost immediate I was inundated with requests to produce a kit version....

 

And Himself used the first lockdown to reach the finishing line on another long term project, finally completing the painting and lining of our Backwoods Lyn.

 

 

 

The latest of our WHR saloons rolled off the production line, too.

 

 

September

 

Trying our best, once again, to stay synchronised with real world developments, Himself began painting our 130, starting with the bunkers and tanks which received their lovely crimson/plum colour and straw lining. 

 

 

After completing work on the tank waggon I was engaged on a request to produce a kit for the FR's small ex-MOD bogie wagons.

 

The first task was to find a way to produce the bogies.

 

The solution I hit on was to cast a piece which could slip over the very free-running Hudson bogie sold by Dundas.    

 

 

 

In fact, Dundas was doing very good business out of us with Himself deciding it was time to replace a lot of our slate waggon fleet as the 30 year old bodies became brittle.

 

This time instead of a uniform grey he decided to make them a little more colourful.

 

Another One Joins The Fleet

 I'll keep this post short and let the picture do the talking.

As you can see, Lyn is now lined, varnished and reassembled, and ready for action on Bron Hebog, whenever model railway exhibitions are allowed again.

I've written before that Lynton and Barnstaple locos are not my favourites, neither is the unsubtle Southern livery, but Lyn is the most appealing of the lot.

I think it's perhaps got the Earl of Merioneth attitude - it doesn't pretend to be pretty, it's just built to do the job.

And if you don't like that, tough!

Southern Comfort

 

Before leaving for a week in Wales, Himself was making startling progress on the lining on Lyn.

It was a stroke of good fortune that one of the sets of 4mm scale standard gauge Southern locomotive lettering produced by Fox fits exactly for the tanks.

The same was not true of the numbers for the tenders which were a little on the large size, but we found a set of numbers in yellow in the general alphabet and numeral section of the catalogue which are a lot more suitable. 

The white lining is very impressive, particularly around the nameplate on the cabside and even more so on the oval plate on the bunker.

I'm never really been a fan of the Southern livery on any size of locomotive - it's a bit too 'in your face' for my tastes, and I've never felt Lyd fits in on the FR like that.

I much preferred it in the spoof BR black, or its original pre-grouping livery would be even better in my mind.

Somehow the loco which suits it best is this big, boxy American interloper.

Lining Lyn

Himself is making steady progress painting our Backwoods Baldwin Lyn.

He's reached the lining stage of the process.

Although its the white which stands out most in the picture there is also some black lining there, forming the neat edges to the green.

This was applied first and has been varnished to provide a better key for the narrow white lines.

They're a lot simpler to apply that on many of the FR locos because they have 90 degree joins instead of inverted corners which can be a real pain in the backside.

Green Agreement

It's a rare day when Himself and I are as one on the question of colours - especially greens!

But we had a rare outbreak of unity in choosing the paint shade for our Backwoods Lynton and Barnstable Lyn which is now being finished off.

Himself bought a selection of Southern shades from the Railmatch range and what we decided on was a 50/50 mix of Light Olive and Malachite Green which best seemed to marry up with the photos we took at Dinas a couple of years ago.

Himself held off with painting this loco because he was never quite satisfied with how it performed - it always had a very pronounced waddle.

The solution has been to disable the compensation on the front driving axle, locking it in place with a new bearing. 

Years ago we had to do the same on the Backwoods Ladies which we could never get to run right as the designer intended.

More Unfinished Business

The election - and the acute sleep deprivation which goes with it - has delayed me posting today.

In the absence of any fresh modelling activity - and with Himself just returned from volunteering on the FR - there’s nothing new to tell you, so how about some pictures of another model which still awaits final completion?

Our Backwoods Lyn made its debut at Dinas last year in naked brass and white metal but still awaits painting.

This is not a unsubtle hint to Himself because he has been prioritising other projects.

Eventually it would look something like this.

I suppose the question is whether ours is outshopped before the Heljan model appears?

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.

Lyn And Linda

Test running continues as we count down the days until Dduallt goes on show in Greenock next weekend.

When I popped in the other day and took a peek into the railway cave I noticed a very distinctive, golden shape in the lower fiddle yard.

Our Backwoods Lyn made its debut at the Superpower event on Bron Hebog last month, but that's a very different sort of layout - as is the WHR a very different sort of railway.

So the big question - to which I honestly do not know the answer - is will Lyn get around Dduallt?

Will it squeeze through Rhoslyn Cutting (beneath the bridge which carries the spiral) or will it get stuck?

All vote now!

(Of course, the real locomotive wouldn't get through Garnedd Tunnel, but Rule Number 1 applies.)

Rebel Without A Tender

Even though we've worked for 20 years to create a layout of very ambitious scale, one which is also as accurate as we can make it, we're not above having a little fun with what we run on Bron Hebog at exhibitions.

We've always quite enjoyed making a cheeky reference to the politics of the railway or happenings, such as the model of the crashed car at Bron Hebog crossing which - as I expected - was a talking point at weekend among those 'in the know' who came to look at the layout.

Another irresistible target was the appearance of the replica Lynton and Barnstaple Baldwin Lyn at the Superpower event, which was appearing on the Welsh Highland for the weekend under the strict understanding that it would never been seen near the FR's resident Manning Wardle Lyd.

(That moment is to happen for the first time in Devon.)

With Himself having burned some midnight oil to get our new Backwoods Lyn to the stage where it can run the temptation was too great...

The model itself is still requires a lot of running in, producing a rather dramatic squeal if given too much juice, and it still has a rather pronounced waddle at this stage, but it managed to put in a few laps of the layout, some of which were caught on camera.



The real loco was only running top and tail with Taliesin between Caernarfon and Waunfawr, and we had the chance to take a ride behind it courtesy of the free Rover tickets which the railway provided for all exhibitors.

Ours ventured a little further south to Beddgelert.

We will, of course, post updates as construction is completed.

The Third Baldwin

I mentioned in passing on here a few weeks ago that we have a new locomotive project - a Backwoods kit for the Lynton and Barnstaple Baldwin Lyn.

The real sized replica will be running on the Welsh Highland next weekend so I guess that provided some inspiration for Himself to dig it out of the box and see what it was all about.

This model is unusual for us because it comes part-assembled.

It came into our possession as a quid pro quo from a good friend of the layout in return for Himself taking on some advanced troubleshooting on a couple of other locomotives.

Now, with second-hand Backwoods kits the best advice is caveat emptor and it's very much the case here.

(Apologies, this post keeps drifting off into Latin.)

Himself tells me that the person who'd started the kit had broken the golden rule of following the instructions to the letter.

In this case they'd jumped ahead a few stages in putting the frames together meaning it was now impossible to insert the wheels, and their associated compensation mechanism.

Fortunately it was not so far advanced as to prevent him unsoldering parts and reconstructing it as it was designed to be put together.

Himself tells me he regards all this as a very good warm up exercise for taking on one of the new Garratt kits we obtained in the summer, which I anticipate will become his main winter project.