Pipes And Hoses

I dropped the BZ wagons off with Himself at the weekend for finishing off the brake pipes and the couplings and told him there was no hurry.

Works a treat, every time.....

As you can see, the pipe run, which is visible from the side view of the wagon on the track, has a lot of bends in it and the vacuum hoses on these wagons are very long and curvy.

Unlike most other ones which hang vertically these curl around horizontally so that the end doors can fold flat and connect when the wagons are being used in drive-through mode during engineering works.

Apologies to devotees of fast food joints for spelling drive-through properly.

On second thoughts, no, actually.

Fully Loaded

Himself has decided that too many of our BZ wagons have been running around empty for too long.

So for the show in a couple of weeks time at the Welsh Highland Superpower weekend he's made up some loads.

These large utility wagons are given all sorts of jobs around the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland system and these show one being used to carry loco coal with another couple full of scrub from a lineside clearance train.

We'll probably fill some other ones up with loco ash, which is how many of them are deployed.

All of the loads are removable.

They sit on a false floor made from sheet styrene which is raised up on stilts.

And if you're wondering how he got the coal in there (which is real coal, by the way) he put a layer of cling film inside the wagon before inserting the false floor, spooning in the coal and then pouring a diluted PVA mix over it all.

That way the inside of the wagon was undamaged.

One Careful Owner

I've had a go at distressing the model of the Ford Puma to try to make it look like it's had an argument with a Garratt.

Does that look convincing?

The technique I used in the end was a heat one of my spoon-shaped scribing tools over a gas burner on the stove and press it into the panels which look the hits.

The area was weathered using a dry brush to try and pick out the shape more and then the previously shiny plastic was given a coat of matt varnish.

I'll take it over to Himself's place later today and see what it looks like abandoned by the lineside.

Just Brake Pipes To Go

As far as my part in them goes the two BZ wagons are done.

The main thing that they're still missing - apart from colour, of course - is the brake pipe runs and the vacuum bags, but that's Himself's speciality so I shall pass them over to him to complete that job.

As is quite often the way I never really appreciated how different the two are until I studied them in detail for making the models.

Not only are there very different side door solutions on the two designs but they have their brake cylinders on opposite sides.

I've also come to the conclusion that the one nearest the camera is derived from a cut down B wagon while the one at the back, with the remains of the hinges on the frames, was built up on the chassis of a DZ wagon.

Oh yes, one more task I forgot - fitting couplings to the bogies.

That might help.....

A State Of Distress

Vandalising models doesn't come naturally to me, but that's what I'm going to have to do for a very up-to-date scenic feature on Bron Hebog.

Recently a car had an 'argument' with a Garratt - and came off second best - on the occupational crossing, also called Bron Hebog, which is at the back right hand corner of our layout.

The vehicle involved was a Ford Puma and it got me wondering whether there were any suitable scale models available on the market?

A quick internet search turned up one of these, conveniently in red, the same colour as the car involved in the incident.

This particular model is to HO scale, which is smaller than the 4mm scale of OO9, but there is also a useful modelling dodge to have things at the back of a layout smaller and so add depth by making them seem further away.

As this will be indeed be placed at the furthest away point on Bron Hebog it should work well.

The challenge now is to make this pristine plastic Puma look a little more like this....

Last Of The B Wagons

A couple of weeks ago I showed you a picture of the final Worsley brass B wagon which Himself had finished tarting up, now it's been painted and is ready for lettering and a coat of varnish.

It's the extra little details he adds which really make these models for me, such as the footsteps which hang down and are picked out in yellow, and all the grab handles along the side of the frame.

Put together with all the resin Mk2 designs I've produced we now have a very long string of SAR freight wagons which look very impressive running together behind one of our Garratts on the layout.

Come and see for yourself at Superpower next month - all the details are on the Exhibition Diary page.

Harold The Second

We have a number of duplicates in our fleet, mostly this is because we've made an improved version as our techniques have improved, or because a better kit has come onto the market.

In the case of the Boston Lodge works shunter Harold (better known by it's nickname 'Shitty the shunter') we're having to make another one because our original one was stolen.

That's right, it was nicked - and I still feel very angry about it.

It was taken, many years ago now, while we were exhibiting Dduallt at a specialist Narrow Gauge exhibition in Leeds - most probably by an 'insider', because it was parked in a headshunt in the middle of the layout so it was not as if a member of the public visiting the show could lean over and swipe it while the layout was running.

That suspicion that it was a fellow 'modeller' - I use the term advisedly - has always cheesed me off more than the fact it was pinched.

Anyway, it's always been a long term ambition to replace it, and recently Himself started putting together the body which we adapted from a Chivers kit.

Our first version ran on a Farish DMU power bogie but it was a little bit of a squeeze, so for this incarnation I suggested to Himself that we use one of the spare Arnold 'Kof' chassis I had tucked away for a rainy day.

As I say, it's a long term project, so don't expect to see it appearing anytime soon.

And when it does rest assured that I will be keeping a very close eye on it!