Getting It Straight

When we set out to make Minffordd it was with the intention to make as much use of ready-to-run rolling stock as we could.

That may seen an odd approach for a layout team best known for amassing a huge collection of kit built and scratch built stock but we wanted to get it made as quickly as we could.

Wanting to have DCC sound on the layout was the other major consideration - so much easier with RTR!

However, there were still some locos which required some serious hacking about to be correct for our era, and one of them was Prince.

The era we are modelling Prince in the 1960s is the period where 'The Old Gent' was going through something of a mid-life crisis.

He hadn't yet started bulking up on the steroids - that came in the 1980s - but to try to keep up with the younger Ladies who appeared on the railway the decision was made to strengthen his frames and take out the classic step up beneath the saddle tank.

This look, which lasted for less than a decade, wasn't included in the 'tooling suite' for the Peco / Kato Small England so it was necessary for us to take the knife to it.

The good news is that the body breaks down into sub-assemblies, and the frame is one of these.

It was a relatively simple job to chop out the stepped-up section and join the two halves back together with some thin brass strip and fix the saddle tank section back on top.

To be completely authentic we also filed away the ballast weights in front of the smokebox and the resulting hole was disguised with some brass shim.

As the loco had to be completely disassembled in any case to hard wire in a DCC chip it didn't mean that much extra work.

Prince has come to be perhaps our most essential locomotive for operating Minffordd Yard because - on account of his traction tyres (I might have been wrong about those....)-  he's the only loco which can haul a full rake of wagons up to the Mineral Line,  all the rest have to drag them up a couple at a time and assemble the rake in the siding at the top.

Minffordd Update: What's New in 2024

An update to this blog is severely overdue, it appears.   I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had last posted.

There's been no big leap forward since the autumn but there have been developments in a number of directions.

Rolling stock acquisition continues steadily.

The most recent arrivals are a suitably ragbag selection of carriages to represent the final few years of steam haulage on the Cambrian, made up of various ex-GWR designs from Collett and Hawksworth.

A Standard 3MT, with an authentic Machynlleth identity, has joined the fleet, along with one of the new Hornby 2-6-0 2MTs.

Both still require investment in sound chips and speakers, as does our 'Old Gent' Prince which is running-in on the home test track following surgery to straighten its frames to 1960s condition.

On the layout there's been a major rethink on the fiddle yard with a decision to ease the entry curve at the Harlech end, because it was slightly too tight for the steam engines and their pony trucks - it was fine when we had originally envisaged only running DMUs and Bo-Bo diesels.

This has necessitated the construction of a 4"-wide shelf extension - it's not ideal but needs must.

Underneath Himself has been getting on with the electrics, connecting up the point motors and the tracks for DCC operation.

I've been called into action to scratch the louvres into the glazing sheets on the 'Barns' to represent the iconic, but impractical, ventilation arrangements on these carriages.

Currently on my workbench is a shrunken representation of the Minffordd goods shed which is making good progress.

Finally, a plug for what its looking like our only exhibition appearance of 2024 as we prepare to take Dduallt to the SEC in Glasgow for the Model Rail Scotland show at the end of the month.

Do come and see us and say hello if you are able to visit the show.

Pulling Apart A Prince

Even though 009 is fast becoming a ready-to-run scale its good to know that some old fashioned modelling is required to produce the appropriate locomotive fleet for our Minffordd layout.

A consequence of Kato/Peco beating Bachmann to the punch on producing a model of the Small England engine is that the differences between the versions put on sale so far are confined to decoration rather than changes to the body tooling.

This means, as far as Prince is concerned, the most current version they can (accurately) make is more than 60 years old.

The first example of extreme tinkering - others would say butchering - at Boston Lodge in the preservation era was when 'The Old Gent' emerged from it's first overhaul with the distinctive stepped frame beneath the saddle tank turned into a straight beam which ran the length of the locomotive, with a pronounced gap now beneath the tank.

This is the way it would have looked in the period we are going to run our Minffordd layout.

It ran in this guise for around 6 years before being withdrawn again and emerging in 1980 looking like a body builder who has overdosed on steroids.

Fortunately, the main component parts of the body are designed in such a way that the frame can be easily separated from the saddle tank, cab and smokebox to allow for some corrective surgery to be attempted.

I know it's possible because it's already been done by the model designer (and a very good job of it he's done, too) and he's kindly passed on some notes on how it was done.

As you see in the picture, Himself has disassembled the model and is awaiting supplies of appropriately-sized brass strip before he begins chopping.

Englands Glory?

The appearance last week of images of decorated samples of the Peco / Kato FR England models has been greeted with almost universal acclaim in the online 009 community, so I suspect I am not going to make myself very popular by giving a more nuanced appraisal of what we've been shown.

Like everyone I am overjoyed to see the appearance of a ready-to-run model of my all-time favourite narrow gauge engines, and I have no doubt at all that these will be a terrific commercial success.

They look to be night and day by comparison to anything that has been possible with the many kits produced over the decades, and for that the designers and manufacturers are to be congratulated.

As far as can be seen from these images the finish looks to be superb, and there's no doubt they have captured the look and feel of these iconic FR locos, and I am very pleased indeed to see the very distinctive Small England wheels have been replicated, and the motion - although apparently not to the fish belly profile - looks suitably slender.

The lining looks crisp and the rivet detailing delightful.

Do you sense I'm building up to a but?

You're right, and more than one.

Judging from these pictures I'm left with a nagging feeling of frustration of what might have been if the makers had gone the whole way and striven to make the most accurate representations of the individual locomotives rather than compromise on a generic tooling.

Let's face it, if there's just one thing readers of this blog must have realised by now it is that identical' is not a word in the FR lexicon!

To begin with let's look at the most obvious example on this pair: the nameplate on Prince.

It's the same length as the one on Princess.

Since when? 

Anyone who has cast even the most cursory glance at the real locomotives, or any photos of them, surely cannot miss that the plate (and mounting block) on Prince is so obviously shorter.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but when they've gone to the effort of fitting different smokebox handrails on the two models to not find a way to alter the nameplates is a poor show.

The slidebars and the mounting bracket also look a little toy-like from this distance - a bit too much like what we've got on the ancient Ibertren chassis under our existing Langley white metal kits.

Other reviewers have picked up on the whistles and the lining around the rear of the cab.

These may seem like trivial complaints, especially in the context of the decades we have waited for manufacturers to discover 009, but the reality is that now that they have these compromises on models such as these are not where the rest of the market is.

(They'll still fly off the shelves, though...)

When this project was announced there was great anticipation of the Kato chassis, but I see now this model will be fitted with a traction tyre - is this the 1980s? - and I have seen conflicting reports about whether or not it will be DCC ready or even DCC compatible?

Let's not pretend that it's because the model is too small.  Bachmann have found a way to make room for decoders in their Quarry Hunslets which are tiny compared to the capacious saddle tanks on an England.

That won't affect whether or not we'll buy some - we surely will - because our layouts are DC, but some of the translated literature suggests the prototypes have hauled 3 (!) Peco carriages on level track, even with their rubber tyres.

That's a little worrying if, like us, you have a layout with gradients. Hopefully something was lost in translation there.

Ultimately, I know what is at the route of my comparative disappointment at this model.

It was an open secret that another manufacturer was intending to make 4mm models of these locomotives - indeed, had gone so far as to measure them up - and it would appear that these models were announced as a spoiler.

Well, I guess all's fair in love, war and business, but I believe what we have ended up with, in this very pretty, slightly generic England, is a far cry from what we were likely to get (eventually) if the other firm had been left to it.

And that's a shame.

Meanwhile At Dduallt

Again, not too much modelling to report today.

I have managed to cast a batch of FR bogie sides for Narrow Planet to sell and I have liberated the incomplete farmhouse from its box to remind myself what remains to be done.

So in the meantime, until I have something of substance to report here's another video, of Dduallt this time.