Meals On Wheels

The bits I needed for the bogies for 125 arrived in the post and half an hour with a soldering iron, a set of broaches and some superglue later the new Service Car is on wheels.

The bogies and the door unit will almost certainly require some adaptation in order to get around the curves on Dduallt - or at least at the 'bottom end' where there is the cut in on the frame.

It may be a while before this can be done because the layout has been taken down while Himself works on the fences on Bron Hebog.

At least now, though, I can fit the truss rods and all the gubbins beneath the carriage and be sure they don't hang down too low.

That Sinking Feeling

I've continued fitting out the 'kitchen' of 125.

Along the 'top' of the 'engine side' there is a continuous row of units and appliances with a worktop above which includes a pair of sinks which I have duly sunk.

I do intend to fit something that represent the taps which can just be seen peeking above the window ledge, but I'll leave that little detail until towards the end of the build.

Shut Up

No, not you. I'm referring to the high security storage in the buffet area of Service Car 125.

The bit I've been working on is the full height shelves on the clock side at the Blaenau end of the carriage.

These can be covered up with roller shutters so I've decided to take the easy way out and model them in the closed position using pieces of clapboard styrene sheet.

The work tops in this carriage are worthy of note because they come up to the level of the horizontal bar about a quarter of the way up the window.

This is going to be interesting challenge because we need to paint the back of the glazing so from the outside it looks like it has a film on the glass but in the inside it needs to look like a wood panel.

We're going to have to give that one some thought....

Fitting Out

I was intending to continue working on the under frame of 125 next - those tricky truss rods.

(Well, they're tricky for me anyway, because I've never been that good where bending brass is concerned.)

To do that I really need to have it sitting on bogies, but I don't have any of those yet because I am waiting on fresh supplies of bearings and wheels to arrive.

So instead I've started on the interior.

The biggest feature, and the most obvious thing to start with, is the big central compartment which contains the generator and the toilet.

As they're both obscured from view behind the louvred doors and an opaque window, I shall not bother to add the internal division.

I have never been one of those modellers who bothers with details that no one will ever see.

That doesn't make me a bad person, does it?

Post Haste

I popped in on Himself over the weekend to see how he's getting on - not that I'm checking up on him, you understand.

Progress on lining out 150 has stalled.

(It's the kind of job you have to be in the mood for.)

However, the fence line is extending nicely on Bron Hebog.

As well as the trackside fencing there also also some around the farm to be installed.

You may recall I mentioned there is an awkward section on the S bend which straddles a board joint.

This means there is a run of four posts which sit on their own on a corner - I wonder how long they'll last?

That section of fence continues along the front edge of the board to its rear, where the track is doubling-back towards Rhyd Ddu once again.

The brown space in the foreground is where the ruined barn goes - and making that is going to be one of my priorities in 2017.

The Pips

I did warn you not to expect rapid progress on 125.

For various reasons it's been one of those weeks where I didn't get a lot done at the modelling desk.

What I did manage was to fix on the pips on the under frame of the carriage,

These are a very distinctive feature on the Superbarns.

In fact they're not pips but, I believe, brackets which support the wood-framed body shell.

For our purposes, however, they can be represented with small pieces of thin styrene strips.

The challenge is to get them all in a straight line and on the same level.  Placed too high they will affect the height that the body shell sits on its chassis, too low and there's an obvious gap to be seen,

They also have a habit of falling off randomly during handling and painting

String 'Em Up

Himself has been carrying on with the fence installation around the S bend, all the while muttering that he takes pity on the contractors who had to do it for real all the way down from Rhyd Ddu to Porthmadog on Phase 4.

You'll notice that due to the location of the board joint the fence line on the upper side of the line, in the middle of the picture, will have to be broken with a stand-alone section on the other board.

As you can imagine these fence posts are going to be very vulnerable to knocks when putting and taking down the layout, or even shifting the boards around in storage.

So Himself has cunningly strengthened the ends ones by securing them in position up against a length of piano wire. (He never throws useful things away even when retired!)

What's not so smart is that he's also realised that when the fence line marches up over the high edges of Cutting Mawr the board will most likely no longer fit in the face-to-face storage racks.

So fine were the tolerances that those couple of centimetres will make all the difference.