Street View

The three new houses have survived the four hundred mile trip in the post and are being tried out in position on the layout.

So now we have most of one side of the street in position and Oberon Wood, although very obviously unfinished, will be looking a bit more respectable the next time the layout is on show in September.

With the row complete Himself can now adjust the road to its final position.

It would appear that it needs to be shifted a little towards the side of number 21 - that's the unpainted house on the far left - but it wasn't a bade guess.

Here's the view from the operators' side looking across at the row of back gardens.

Not a bad effort for such an unusual collection of houses I think.

Face Off

The other side of the observation compartment on number 11 is finished now.

I'm always stuck by the way these two sets of seats face each other across the carriage - it's rather redolent of the trains on the London tube and Glasgow underground.

Or perhaps the inspiration wasn't taken from railway practice but the House of Commons?  It looks familiar, doesn't it, with those two forward (or backward?) facing seats by the bulkhead.

When the next generation of FR observation carriages were built, starting with 100, they had individual swivelling seats taking full advantage of the more generous loading gauge but, as I've written before, I think the cosy inside of 11 has got much more atmosphere.

Mersey Seat

I've spent a few days prevaricating about getting started on the interior for number 11 mainly on account of knowing that I was unlikely to have an opportunity in the near future to get it done in a oner.

Quite often I find knowing that I am unlikely to be able to get much done in a modelling session is a disincentive to get started in the first place.

Am I alone in that, I wonder?

Anyhow, the other night I told myself to stop faffing about and get on with it.

I didn't have very long and what time I did have was interrupted by getting the kids to bed and making the dinner, but this is what I managed to produce.

In case you didn't get the reference in the title, when number 11 was converted into an Observation Carriage in 1958 it was fitted with some ex-Mersey Rail seats, the ones at the observation end were fixed lengthways at either side.

Until the last overhaul there was a block of 4 seats on either side but it was always rather snug - and they do say that the average British tourist has become bulkier since the 1950's - so two seats have been sacrificed and a little breathing space created between them.

Panel Games

With the track in position, the point motors installed and the tangle of diodes in place to work them Himself has turned his attention to the final control panels for the fiddle yards.

(At previous exhibitions we were using a temporary controller and hand operated points)

The idea is to make it as idiot-proof as possible and he has stuck on the track diagram at the Caernarfon end.

The point and section switches can be seen in the photo, what he has still to fit is the LEDs which will indicate which road has been selected.

I fear that despite all the wizardry come the first exhibition head-on collisions will still be inevitable...

Labelled up the Caernarfon end fiddle yard this afternoon. Will still have to put some LED in for indicating the road that has been set, that will have to be done later..

Twelfth Night

I managed to put in a couple of hours work the other evening to assemble the parts of number 12 into a body shell and fit the chassis and roof so it looks like a carriage now.

Before I could do that, however, I had to make up the corridor connections on the guard's van end which are rather unusual and more of a challenge to model that normal.

Perhaps because of the heritage value of the carriage / van (?) the usual side guards formed of a plank of wood with a folded rubber section are not mounted directly to the woodwork at the end of the carriage but instead are hinged on metal frames so they sit clear of the body work.

I don't know the reason why. I wonder if it is to make them easier to remove, or the mounting points less obtrusive, so the carriage can be turned out with a more heritage appearance when required?

Maybe someone who knows could enlighten us?

Anyway, the main issue for me was how to replicate this feature?

I decided in the end to drill holes into the styrene and insert short lengths of 0.5mm brass wire and drill more holes in the end of the carriage, very carefully so they lined up accurately, so they would sit proud of the body shell.

I also managed to find the time fit the roof skin to number 11 as well.

Interiors next, I think.

Eleventh Hour

Number 11 is, and I suspect will always be, my favourite FR carriage. It has an air of nobility about it and always looks so cosy.

First time passengers would probably say 'cramped' rather than 'cosy', I suspect, and there's an irrefutable logic in the FR's move towards palaces on wheels like the new observation car 150.

But, as I say, I have a soft spot for dear old 11, which has been in semi-retirement now for the best part of a quarter of a century, so I was very pleased to resume work on my latest model of it the other day.

I retrieved the pieces from the photo album where they'd been kept for the last couple of months and glued up the basic body rectangle and cut out the floor and false ceiling.

The album had protected them well but there was only so much it could do to resist the solvent which had inevitably put a slight curl into the bodysides.

This had been slightly complicated at the guards compartment ends where the resin duckets had been superglued into place and the chemicals all got a little confused.

Fortunately most of the curl goes 'in the way' and when the floor and roof are in position they force the bodysides to straighten out.

The next task is to add the roof skin and then probably begin work on the interior which was revised at the last rebuild to make the observation end even more spacious!

Return To Rolling Stock

I've had enough of houses for the moment, I need a break from buildings.

So with an evening to myself I thought I'd make a start on the interior for our new number 16, which has been built up from a Worsley Works brass body kit.

I got on so well that, as you can see, it was finished after just two and a half hours work which goes to show two things:

a) How fiddly and time consuming scratch building these houses has been.

and

b) How much modelling you can get done on the rare occasions when the rest of the family are either out or asleep in bed!

I have been given designs for two more of the Oberon Wood houses but I think next I will return to finish off carriages 11 & 12.

The sides and ends have been built and have spent the last couple of months being squashed in a photo album to keep them flat.

It would be nice if I could finish off the construction and persuade Himself to expedite their passage through the paint shop in time September when we take both layouts to the WHR Super Power even.

That way we'll have a set of 11 & 12 to run on each of the layouts.