2019 - Part 4

We rounded off the year with a first showing of Bron Hebog in Scotland at our own club's show in Greenock and with the debut of our new set of WWHR carriages.

Unfortunately only Russell is able to pull the whole lot up the hill. Gelert and the Baldwin have to have the load reduced....

130 is really starting to come together, although once again Himself is waiting for the real one to be finished so we can be completely sure about all those little details.

I'd finally got round to making a start on the second WHR Pullman observation car which is being given the name Gwyrfai.

November

Progress on the carriage has not been rapid but did get most of a day to myself to start adding the beading to the side pieces.

Himself decided that after many years broken on a shelf it was time to get our original Blanche back into running order, a major operation which required the strip down of the chassis and replacement of a gear wheel.

He was also getting on with the very intricate task of lining out the FR Observation car 152, the completion of which has taken most of 2019.

December

To bring the review up to date, as you've been reading in recent weeks I've been making an effort to complete the first model of van 51, which has sat for many months looking like this.

And Himself celebrated the completion of 152 with a line up of our three Pullman obs, hopefull to be joined by a fourth next year.

Thanks for reading our updates during 2019 and we look forward to sharing more of our modelling with you in 2020.

Welsh Highland Heritage

With two weeks to go until Bron Hebog goes on show for the only time in 2019 at the exhibition in Greenock, here's an image to whet the appetite.

The two WHHR Ashbury corridor carriages are finished and ready for service, having been given a coat of varnish and reassembled.

What you see here is the rake used for Russell's historic trips to Beddgelert earlier this year, although ours seems to have ventured further north...

During the exhibition we'll also be using Gelert and the Baldwin on this set which will make a very colourful addition to the layout - especially the Rheidol brake van which we've depicted in the BR blue livery it carried for a short while.

The real one has since been repainted into a rather drab chocolate colour. (correction: maroon)

To which all I can say is: spoilsports!

Join The Cavalcade

Never let it be said that we are unafraid to jump on a bandwagon at Bron Hebog.

As the FR celebrates the 125th birthday of Hunslet 'Ladies' Linda and Blanche by inviting lots of other Loiners to come and play in the top left and corner of Wales this weekend we thought we'd get in on the act too.

My social media feeds have been full of pictures of line ups of little locomotives so Himself decided to do the same by posing all our Hunslets together.

This collection was made possible by Brian Madge, Robex, Roger Chivers and Backwoods Miniatures - and we're very grateful to them for their wonderful kits.

Russell Returns & Baldwin Beckons

There have been exciting Narrow Gauge developments in recent weeks.

In the real world Russell has returned to service on the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway following a long, and thorough overhaul.

I suspect I am not alone in wondering how long it will be before the old boy ventures onto the original formation once again. (The last time was trips from Dinas to Waunfawr)

Of course here on Bron Hebog Russell has already returned to Beddgelert and hopefully soon this scene will no longer be just a piece of modeller's licence.

The other exciting news is that Bachmann is dipping a toe in the OO9 market and has announced plans to make a ready-to-run model of the Baldwin 4-6-0, and some WD wagons, as tie in to commemorations of 100 years since the start of the Great War.

This is amazing news because I have hankered after a model of a Baldwin ever since I saw 778 running on the WHHR a few years ago.

The railway is in the process of restoring another survivor to run as number 590, the loco used on the original WHR, which is one of the versions Bachmann is proposing to build.

Although body kits for Baldwins have been around for decades I've always been put off by the lack of a realistic chassis option because there is noting that has the distinctive gap between the 2nd and; 3rd axles.

We have already put in an order for a model of 590.

We may have to wait around a year for it to appear. How long, I wonder, before a real Baldwin steams back to Beddgelert?

Now finally, there is an issue for the Bron Hebog HR dept to address.

You may have heard of a story which cropped up here in Scotland a couple of weeks ago where it emerged one of the volunteers taking part in the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was (allegedly) doing it having told her employers she was on sick leave.

Her cover was blown, so the story goes, when her bosses, watching the show on TV, noticed that one of dancers looked strangely familiar.

I guess she hadn't considered that....

Well something similar has happened to Himself.

He's been caught on camera skiving from the task of getting Bron Hebog ready for its next exhibition in a few weeks time and is instead apparently having a jolly good time in North Wales.

He's clearly forgotten that I have spies everywhere.

MOTW - 'Russell' (Cut Down Version)

This week we have a much older version of a younger representation of a classic WHR loco. If that sentence doesn't make any sense at the moment it will by the end of this post.

This model of Russell is built from a Chivers whitemetal kit for the 1923 Boston Lodge butchered version of Russell from the days when the FR and WHR were first connected - a botched attempt to make the locomotive fit the FR loading gauge which legend records was declared a paint-scratching, bodywork-denting failure in the depths of the old Moelwyn Tunnel.

The model came about for two reasons. Firstly we had a spare bespoke outside framed chassis for Russell (built for me, very kindly, around 20 years ago by renowned Colorado NG modeller Mick Moignard) when our first Chivers kit was superseeded by the exquisite Backwoods Miniatures kit.

The other reason was because the Artistic Director wanted something to wind up the punters at exhibitions and a model of Russell in its controversial cut down form fitted the bill perfectly. (He also tells them he thinks the WHHR should restore the locomotive to this condition)

The old hand made chassis still works a treat and so our ugly duckling still takes a wander around Bron Hebog to amuse the operators and the public alike.

Here, in a scene that will surely never be repeated in reality, we see it passing that other narrow gauge sight-for-sore-eyes, K1, at Beddgelert station on Bron Hebog.

MOTW - Russell

This week it's time to set the record straight.

I was ticked off recently when I described NGG16 number 87 in a Model Of The Week post as the flagship of the restored WHR.

'Surely', wrote a correspondent, 'There's only one WHR flagship, and it's Hunslet 2-6-2 'Russell'?'



It's an interesting point, but I'm sticking by my original statement for a couple of reasons.

Firstly because this blog is almost exclusively concerned with the FR-controlled rebuild of the WHR but also because a flagship, in a naval employment of the word, can be switched from vessel to vessel, or as in this case locomotive to locomotive.

Russell, I would argue, is in an altogether different and more prestigious category. The sole surviving NWNGR locomotive is the icon of the WHR.

Our Russell, the one seen here, is a second generation model. The first was a Chivers whitemetal kit running on a semi-scratchbuilt chassis. The chassis is still going strong running with another Chivers body representing the loco in 1930's cut down form. (Good for winding up the audience at exhibitions.)

This one is a Backwoods Miniatures kit. It runs as well as it looks and represents the loco the first time it ran on the FR after restoration in 1988.

Of course on that occasion, and since, it has never ventured further than Rhiw Goch, but we don't let such minor details as the fact it couldn't squeeze through Garnedd Tunnel deter us running it on Dduallt.



Let us hope that when Russell's current overhaul is completed (and the appeal is still open donations) relations between the FR and the WHHR at Gelert's Farm will have thawed even more than they already have in recent months and we will not be straining credulity when we run our model on Bron Hebog.