MOTW - Mary Ann

This is one of my favourite ugly ducklings.

In many ways you could argue the story of Mary Ann - or 'The Simplex' if you prefer - is a microcosm of the journey the FR itself has made over the last half decade.

Now considered a heritage artifact our model shows Mary Ann in its workaday condition of the 70's and early 80's.

When the new administration took over in 1954 the Simplex tractor - a veteran of the Great War narrow gauge system in France - was the first thing they got working.

In the years that followed as traffic boomed and the railway struggled to expand it was rebuilt and modified to meet changing needs, receiving a transplanted diesel engine and growing a semi-enclosed cab, which certainly gave it back something of the 'tin turtle' look of its armoured sisters on the Western Front.

Those whose only experience of Mary Ann has been as a working museum piece in the last 20 years or so, when it has been stripped back to 1950's condition, and had its original gallons-per-mile petrol engine reinstalled, may perhaps be appalled to see such mutation. But it's important to remember that during this time Mary Ann was one of the mainstays of the p-way department who inevitably ended up doing most of their work in the winter months of the year or early in the mornings. It would have been unreasonable, to say the least, to deny them even this modicum of comfort in the name of heritage, surely?

Our model is one of those box of bits machines. It came about when as a teenager I was given a random selection of old 009 stuff including the remains of a Meridian Models kit for an armoured Simplex and couple of very crude old French 0-4-0 chassis which had been used for a scratch built Garratt.

As it happened, one of these chassis fitted neatly beneath the Simplex body which was opened up at the sides and Himself  created the cab from styrene and added some etched brass grills, nameplates and vac bags.

Back them I considered this a marvel of miniaturisation, never for a moment imagining that in years to come there would be kits of the market for a fully open Simplex with the tiniest, rubber band powered mechanisms such as those produced by Nigel Lawton.

That's progress for you.

Photo (Etched) Finish

And so this is what a sheet of 30 freshly etched bogies (and brake bits) looks like.

It's quite a work of art on its own. It seems rather a shame to have to snip all the individual frets out.

But that's what I'm about to do, and the first consignment of DZ wagon kits will be going in the post very shortly to customers including the Ffestiniog Railway's own retail emporium in Porthmadog.

Better Bogies

Success at the second attempt with the bogies for the DZ wagon kit.

This is the second test etch from Narrow Planet with one of the bogies folded up at the top of the shot.

As you can see they are a basic fold-up design which require 2mm flanged pin point bearings to be inserted plus wheelsets - we use Parkside Dundas 6.2mm disc ones - and couplings to complete them.

Many thanks to Steve at Narrow Planet for his patience in putting up with my rather vague specifications for these parts and the multiple re-designs it has required.

They are now good to go and the first batch of 30 should be with me any day now and the kits can be dispatched.

MOTW - Van 59

This is my scratchbuilt model of a van which has had very peripatetic existence.

It started out as a cattle wagon on the Vale of Rheidol Railway, being built at the GWR's Swindon works in 1923.

15 years later the company re-gauged it (to 2'6") and transferred it eastwards to one of its other Welsh NG outposts, the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway where it stayed for another 20 years until it was purchased in the early years of the FR revival, and re-gauged back to 2 foot (give or take half an inch).

It was rebuilt by volunteers in Buckinghamshire and first saw use on the FR in 1968.

Van 59 has been used to carry all manner of irregular cargoes over the years including horses and more recently, as you can see from the picture, with the intention of deploying it as a bicycle van, although I don't ever recall seeing it being used for that purpose.

Its great versatility to the railway comes from it being fitted with a vacuum pipe connection (and more recently its own cylinder) which means it can be marshaled into passenger trains, which has led to its most notorious duties as the host of a small generator providing power for the lights and sound system on volunteers'  'disco train' charters.

It also performed a similar role during a gala event in 2002 when it again carried a generator to power the lights in the train as 'Blanche' ran through the night during 84 hours of continuous running.

Another interesting fact, which I have only just discovered, is that the red handbrake wheel you can see in the picture is the original wheel from 'Palmerston'.  

A Two Z

The Z struts on the ends of the hoppers are one of the most distinctive features of the NG-Y wagons, and one of the trickiest bits to get right on a model too.

There are at least 5 angled cuts you've got to get precisely right on the 3 lengths of styrene channel which are bonded together to make up each of them.

Get any one of them wrong and at least 1 of the 4 points of contact with the hopper or the frame will be messed up.

It took me at least three attempts to get this one done to my satisfaction, and because they are handed - effectively a mirror image of each other - I am going to have to go though the trauma again to make a second one for the other side.

Putting The Pieces Together

So its the moment of truth with the assembly of my first NG-Y ballast wagon castings.

The first stage is to bond one of the side pieces to the main frame.

Satisfyingly sides and the frames match up perfectly for height at the top and bottom edges.

I repeat the process on the other side and then slip in the two hopper ends.

And even more pleasingly the angled lip mates quite neatly too.

 

 

I think I'm pretty satisfied with that, so I shall crack on with making the masters for more of the detailed bits now.

MOTW - Carriage 10

A very straightforward Model Of The Week this time, one of our few which is straight 'out of the packet'.

Our model of Carriage 10 (yes, I know it's called Van 2 these days, but this is a model of it as number 10) is built from one of the excellent Parkside Dundas kits.

It shows the carriage running as it was when it was restored to traffic in 1991 with an all over green livery.

Today it has very natty brick red colour on the ends and the framing along the bottom, and I am intending to get my hands on a second kit to represent it in this condition to run on Bron Hebog, leaving this original one to be used on Dduallt.

For those who don't know the background, this carriage started off as one of three 'curly roof vans' but was rebuilt in the 1920's with a conventional profile and two passenger compartments squeezed into part of the old luggage space.

What would make a very interesting model of this van is of it in the beaten-up condition, with half its doors missing and flaking paintwork, from the mid-1950's when it was used on early clearance trains along the line, before its wooden frame finally cried 'enough' and it was placed in store for three decades waiting for the FR's heritage revival.