A Sense Of Purpose

The structures which probably most draw the eye on our layout, and anyone looking at the real Minffordd Yard are the two very large slate sheds.

You can't miss them whether you are passing on an FR or Cambrian train, or even driving past on the road.

It wasn't until after the period in which our layout is set that they ever became railway property.

However, they were always crucial to the purpose of the exchange yard, built as an outpost of the Maenofferen slate mining company for exporting their products by rail.

In our period they were being used by the Davies Brothers slate merchants who still stacked their slates on the wharf opposite the Cambrian station platform, although nearly everything came in and out by road.

To add operational interest we shunt narrow gauge waggons on the long sidings which run in front and in between the sheds even though at this time the FR respected its tenant's privacy at that end of the yard. 

A vital part of setting the scene is the large stack of slates behind the shed.

To represent this I was fortunate to be gifted some spare 3D printed blocks which I was able to cast dozens of copies from to complete the effect.

The sheds were built on a styrene skeleton with brick-effect pillars also cast in resin from a single master.

Much as with the real sheds most of the structure is the roof.

With such an expanse of slate I thought it was vital it the slates were in three dimensions so I made use of the thick Wills sheets.

Two of them needed to be bonded together on each elevation, doing my best to disguise the join.

Some people do wonder why we don't have tracks leading into the sheds, but this is actually a modern feature - well, 50+ years old now - after the FR took ownership and raised the roofs to make use of them to store rolling stock over the winter months.

Seasonal Slating

I hardly got any modelling done during the Christmas / New Year break - mostly on account of my work room being pressed into service as a guest bedroom.

The little I was able to do was fix a couple of roof sections onto number 20.

I could probably have found the time to do a little more but I've run out of Wills slate sheets - or at least bits that are large enough to make up the missing sections.

While I wait on fresh supplies arriving I'm toying with the idea of cutting out some of the walls for the next house.

Pipe Down

I've been able to get back to working on the farm house this week after completing the batch of wagon kits to restock the Narrow Planet webshop.

I've started fitting some of the gutter and drain pipes starting with the back of the house.

The ornamental collector is from a sheet of Wills building details.

It's probably a little too big because the house has been scaled down as it's at the back of the layout.

That said, the only people who will see it, because of its position, are the operators anyway.

The exterior pipes enhance the look of the building but I'm not currently planning on attempting to add guttering - does that make me a bad person?

Lean On Me

I've taken a break from the almost non-stop casting to do a little more work on the farm house.

The big outstanding item is the lean-to shed at the north end of the building.

It's hard to get a good view of this bit of the house without trespassing but the Artistic Director has done his best to interpret the photographs we have and I'm turning it into three dimensions.

The front face is interesting because it's a mix of wooden panels, crinkly tin, a doorway and window.

I have some old, thin, transparent Wills corrugated iron sheet which I've employed here and I'll use again for the tin roof.

It's very effective and should do the job well.

Humble Pie

I've had my comeuppance for extolling the virtues of my homemade roofing slates here on the blog.

Himself logged on and had a look at the pictures and sent me a message saying: "Very nice, but aren't they a bit on the large side?"

I grabbed my research pictures of the house in question and started counting slates.

Dammit, he was right! (He usually is...)

The prospect of ripping off and relaying all the slates - only even more of them - didn't immediately appeal.

So out of curiosity I delved in my drawer and pulled out the remains of some sheets of Wills 4mm roofing slates I had left over. (I erroneously wrote last week that these were made by Slaters) and they were indeed much smaller than my paper ones and a much better match, in terms of the number of slates on each section of the roof.

You can compare below.

Fortunately I had just the right amount of sheet, in the right sizes, to cut some replacement roof sections.

So, a week on, the house is back where it was.

 

Oh well, some you win....