Tables & Chairs

I seized upon the chance of an afternoon of domestic solitude to complete the interior of the 7mm Pullman carriage 'Bodysgallen'.

The tables, armchairs and the internal dividers are in position.



This shot shows how the interior is built up on the chassis / underframe.



There's not a lot more to do on this carriage before it's ready to be painted. The outstanding jobs are the handrails on either side of the doors to be folded up from brass wire and on each end I need to make and mount vacuum pipes and electrical connections.

I also need to mount the Kadee couplings and set the heights correctly - when I finally get my hands on some.

Tunnel North

A couple of days ago I showed you some snaps of the rock work forming the northern end of Goat Tunnel. Himself has not wasted any time in filling the gaps with foliage.



That makes all those individual fragments of rock look a lot more convincing, don't you think?



What really gives it away as a model is the virgin ballast and the shiny rails, but don't worry, that'll be sorted out soon enough.

MOTW - Carriage 12 / Van 5

This carriage has had one of the most varied careers of any item of FR rolling stock.

In the freeze-frame reality of Dduallt it remains running as Carriage 12 even though the prototype has reverted to its original identity as Van 5.



Let's have the history lesson, then.

The vehicle was built by Brown, Marshalls as one of the second generation of bogie brake (luggage) vans. (With a conventional roof rather than the curly roofs of the first three.).

By the end of the 1920s the railway had less use for these type of vehicles and it was rebuilt at Boston Lodge with a new body, incorporating a guard's compartment and passenger accomodation in 1st and 3rd class.

It was one of the two carriages first restored for use when the railway reopened and was given the number 12.

It had another makeover in 1957 when it was refurbished and altered. The longitudinal, compartment-style seating was changed into an open saloon formation and a sales counter installed for an embryonic buffet service.

A rudimentary corridor connection fitted so it could work as a twin set with sister carriage 11, which by now had been turned into a first class observation carriage with windows installed at one end.

It was altered again in 1963 when the body was lengthened and mounted on a steel underframe.

In 1982 larger windows were provided in the centre of the carriage and it is in this condition that our model is shown, paired with its sibling, carriage 11.

In 1999 it was repainted into the green and ivory livery carried in the 1950's and early 1960's and in 2005 returned to its original identity as Van 5.

It is currently undergoing a very extensive overhaul at Boston Lodge and is set to emerge restored to how it looked when first lengthened in 1963.

This is our second model of 12. The first was kit-bashed from a GEM whitemetal kit for carriage 11 which had an extra styrene section grafted into the middle of the body, much like the real carriage did.

As you can imagine it was quite a heavy model, which is less than ideal on a layout such as Dduallt with a severe gradient, so this replacement was scratchbuilt in styrene.

Carriage 12 ran for a couple of seasons on the WHR along with 11 as part of a secondary train set, so in due course I think I will end up making yet another model of this carriage to run on Bron Hebog showing it in green and ivory.

220 Bits Of Styrene

A tale of tedium for you this time. I've been making the seats for the 7mm version of 'Bodysgallen'. These are not simple seats, either, but the plush Pullman armchair sorts.



There are 20 of them in all and each one of them is made up of 11 pieces of styrene that all have to be cut, shaped and fitted.

To spare my sanity I've been doing it in little sessions - sometimes for 15 minutes at a time - over a number of weeks. Trying to do it all in a single go would have been just too boring.

Still, no use complaining, its all part of the scratch building experience.

Bottom Left Hand Corner

At last there's one small bit of Bron Hebog which is starting to look finished - well, sort of.

Himself has been busy spreading yet more carpet underlay liberally on the front left hand corner board - the one with the southern end of Goat Tunnel and the 'Bridge To Nowhere' - and the markings have been added to the road along with the height warning signage on the bridge.



Bear in mind that there is a lot of tree cover to be added to this board, although you are starting to get a good impression of what the finished layout will look like.

And the scale of it too. This board is just one of around 15 scenic boards which will make up the complete Bron Hebog.



I'm starting to get quite excited about showing it off at the Sparsholt exhibition in April.

Sticks Of Rock

A reader, Frank, asked a question yesterday about what we used to stick the pieces of rock onto the layout to form Goat Tunnel and the cutting.

I have asked Himself and he tells me he used a hot glue gun to secure the larger bits and oridinary PVA for the smaller pieces.

(I would normally have posted a reply to Frank in the comments section but Blogger appears to be having some functionalty issues in that department tonight....)

Tunnel Vision

I have another scenic update for you today.

Himself has been working on the other end of Goat Tunnel. This is the northern entrance, hidden out of view around the corner in the cutting at the bottom of Beddgelert station.



You can't really call it a tunnel portal in the traditional sense because the four tunnels on the WHR were left as raw holes through Mother Wales.

And if you're wondering what we use to model them the answer is genuine Welsh rock. No, not the minty, pink and white sticks tourists buy in the gift shops in Beddgelert, but thin bits of shale we collected from the Rhinogs behind the village where my Grandmother lived.

It's a repeat of the technique we used on Dduallt. It does, of course, add considerably to the weight of the layout boards, but as we built those out of 2 x 1 and are covering them with wire and plaster you are entitled to assume (correctly) that lightweight construction isn't a priority for us.

When this section of the railway was being relayed they had to take care with the alignment to ensure the larger modern rolling stock fitted through safely and Himself reports that he has done likewise on Bron Hebog, checking that the carriages with the biggest overhangs (the 2 Pullman carrs) can squeeze through OK.

At the moment it still does look rather like a collection of small lumps of rock but we will be adding lots of scenic material into the gaps to represent the foliage which is a feature of this cutting and that will help blend the pieces together to look more like one rockface

And anyway the tunnel mouth will be hidden out of sight of most people viewing the layout.

There's a picture of what the other end looks like in these previous posts here and here.