What's On The Workbench?

I feel it's easy in a blog like this to give the impression to the occasional reader that you're only working on one model at a time, so I thought you might be amused to see all the part-built models I've got on the go at the moment lined up together.



Unfortunately, only two of them are mine to keep.

The two big ones are 7mm scale models of WHR Pullman carriages 'Bodysgallen' and 'Glaslyn' which are being built for a client. They will shortly be painted once their wheelsets and couplers arrive for fitting.

The small one at the back - without a proper roof skin yet - is a model of new FR Superbarn 121. The latest post on this carriage can be found here.

The three complete carriages in front of that are also being made for a client. They are FR carriages 100 , 124 and 112. You can read about them here and also here on the Boston Largs Works site.

And last, but not least, my little modellers licence indulgence, the Parry People Mover. Here you can read the latest on it.

I'm going to have to get at least one of these finished soon because I'm running out of space to store them all on the shelf above the workbench.

MOTW - David Lloyd George

OK, time for another locomotive on Model Of The Week. Lets have the last remaining oil fired Double Fairlie, David Lloyd George.



Our model of 'The Dave', or if you prefer 'The Soup Dragon - on account of its similarity to the colour of tinned tomato soup - is a kit-bashed Backwoods Miniatures masterpiece.

The most obvious of the changes that had to be made to represent the 1992-built machine was the wider opening on the cab sides as well as lots of extra bits and pieces on the top of the boiler and representing the oil tanks where the kit has coal bunkers.

As I understand it, one of the reasons the locomotive has not yet been converted to burn coal is because it was designed as an oil drinker and its unique tapered boiler means the fuel spaces in the tanks are not simple square boxes as they are on Merddin and the Earl.



The picture above shows DLG running on Dduallt when it was brand new, before Narrow Planet etched some lovely name and works plates for us.

Beddgelert Illuminations

Himself has finished the fiddly task of fitting lights - or more correctly, LED's - into his exquisite hand made signals.

This is one of the 'Ladybird' starters. Nice!



And this is one of the point indicator lamps which confirm to the drivers of inbound trains that the automatic trailable points are functioning correctly and it is safe to enter the station loop.

This one with the swan neck is positioned in the cutting at the Porthmadog end of the station.



Himself tells me he's going to have to look into connecting this up to a transformer to reduce the rather dazzling glare from the white LED.

Here are some of them in position at the north end of the station platform.

Heading South

The Welsh Highland in common with the FR and many other narrow gauge railways takes a wandering and rather indirect course through the landscape, so much so that at two points on the northbound journey from Porthmadog to Caernarfon you find yourself heading back to where you started.

The first of those locations is the S bend behind Beddgelert station, which is where Himself has now reached on the 'Hebogometer'.

We're breaking new ground here with a virgin baseboard.

As Himself writes: " It must be one of the most complicated boards on the layout, with the river, road and rail crossing all together plus getting the alignment right with the farm road and buildings in a compact area plus 3 river bridge abutments to make."

"I will not be able to progress the other half of the board until the 2 boards with the loop are built, then I will be able to set the track height towards Bron Hebog crossing."



As you can see in this picture below, this board is set at 90 degrees to the ones along the front of the layout.

It is also staggered in the way it is positioned next to the end board with the loop on it, which is also in an up-down orientation as opposed to the sideways positioning of the boards with Beddgelert station on.



As Himself alluded to, this board will eventually have two sections of track on it, at the top and the bottom, positioned as it is at the right hand end of the upper loop around Cwm Cloch Isaf farm.

Here's a reminder of the eventual layout plan to put that into context for you.

Hmm, still quite a way to go, eh?

MOTW - 103

When you model one railway for a quarter of a century things start to get confusing, especially when the running numbers of the rolling stock are recycled.

Carriage 103 is a case in point. You're showing your age if, like me, the vehicle that comes to mind is the 1968 Barn buffet car rather than the new 'Superbarn' which has absolutely no link to the previous carriage to bear the number, other than the number itself.



This is my second (of three) models numbered 103. Two of them are of this buffet carriage.

The version you see above shows it in the condition it ran for much of the 1990's and through until its withdrawal in 2006 with smooth, aluminium-faced panels and the MkIII style sausage-shaped windows in the buffet area. I always felt it brought a bit of Inter-City chic to the Welsh NG!

Someone - arguably with too much time on their hands - once pulled together some statistics from 103's 38 years service on the FR.

They calculated that it ran 524,233 passenger miles - which apparently gets you to the moon and most of the way back - which is the equivalent of 19,416 return trips to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

And if you assume that there was a different bum on each of its 17 seats for each of those journeys it could have carried up to 30,800 passengers - and more importantly relieved them of a lot of money for refreshments.

Refreshments which in recent years have included bottles of ale from the Purple Moose Brewery, which is a neat link into this picture below.



If the reference is lost on you, allow me to explain.

A number of years ago a spoof picture was published in the Ffestiniog Railway magazine showing 103 painted up to advertise the local brewery - run by an FR volunteer - and which was a reference to a wind-up a couple of decades previously when the magazine reported that one of the carriages would be painted to advertise the Yellow Pages. I believe a number of people were taken in by it at the time.

Of course, all the best jokes have an element of credibility about them, and I recall that this Purple Moose spoof came about around the same time we were beginning to see standard gauge trains being used as mobile billboards thanks to vinyl wrap technology.

Some members of the layout crew have always enjoyed winding up the viewers at exhibitions, so the picture from the magazine was scanned, reduced to the same size as the model and a print out stuck on top. It matched the dimensions of the model carriage almost perfectly, which is a bit of luck!

It was not very high-tec - just ordinary paper stuck on with some tiny blobs of blue tack - and was only supposed to last for one exhibition appearance, but goodness knows how many years later it's still stuck to the side of 103.

Farming Today

A few days ago I showed you the painted farm buildings. Here they are being tried out for size on the layout.



The shot above is taken from the operators side of the layout. The picture below is looking from the right hand side - in the top right corner you can just make out the top of the first loop of the S bend.



And this view below is the one that most paying punters will see at exhibitions.

The washing machine will not form part of the rural Welsh back scene you wlll be relieved to learn.)



Recently, at the Glasgow exhibition which we were attending with one of our 'club's' other layouts, New Mills, Himself spent a small fortune on white metal bits and bobs to represent some of the agricultural detritus which was spread liberally around the farm yard buildings at Cwm Cloch on all our research visits to the Beddgelert area.

Such scenic additions will be spread about the area around the buildings in due course.

Weighty Matters

I've decided that the Parry People Mover needs a little more mass, so I've been pouring liquid lead into every available space in the chassis.



The irony is not lost on me that the reason I first began scratch building carriages in styrene was to make them as light as possible, whereas the PPM, being a self-propelled railcar, needs to be treated more like a locomotive, where every gram helps.

In this case it's not for traction but to improve current collection on the four- wheel chassis - and the extra weight might also help to tame the somewhat wild acceleration of the Kato chassis.

Inside, I've had to address the issue of how to disguise the motor's presence in the passenger saloon.

To get the running height correct the motor unit has had to be mounted above the floor, which means there is much more to cover up. Also the cover has to be removable so that we can access the bolts which secure the Kato chassis to the floor for maintenance.

The problem is that the design of the PPM, with the bus-style folding doors, mean the the glazing runs the full height of the bodyshell at the doors, and whatever you do with the motor unit, whether you try to hide it or not, it will always been seen.

The solution I've chosen is this.



I'm hoping that the sloping sections, which are positioned in front of the doors, is the most unobtrusive way of covering up the motor.

I have also fabricated and fixed in place the interior dividers beside the doors. The driving positions are located in front of the wider panels.



Next I'll be attempting to bodge up some bits of styrene to represent the seat backs as best as I can.