Sandwiched

It's been weeks since I did any work on Gwyrfai but I managed to get a couple of hours in yesterday thanks to the need to use up annual leave before the end of the year.

For such a comparatively small part of the body shell the doors on the WHR carriages take a surprisingly long time to make.

My technique with making carriages out of styrene is to build everything up in layers.

I start with the middle of the sandwich, which in the case of this carriage is a simple oblong piece with a hole where the window in the door goes.

Rather than cutting a hole I create it, adding vertical styrene strips to a square piece, measuring and cutting them to length, and then placing a another piece along the top.

The edge where it joins the carriage is extended by 1mm to give an overlap with the main body side.

Then more strips of styrene, of various lengths and thicknesses, are added in position on top to give the depth which creates the doorway.

On these WHR carriages there is also quite a thick piece glued on its side to create the distinctive inset - this is the bit where it will connect with the back of the body side.

Finally, a third layer is added on the back which creates the window droplight and also the kick plate beneath the door.

The important thing is to keep checking at all stages that they are of identical dimensions, and to ensure they are a mirror image of each other.

The Worst Bit

The one bit of any build of a Welsh Highland carriage, or an FR ‘super saloon’ , that Himself really dislikes is making the handrails for either side of the entrance doors.

These are soldered up from brass wire any usually entail burnt fingertip and some mild bad language.

They are the very last pieces to go on the model before the glazing is fitted.

Fortunately, on an observation car there are only four of them to be made.

K Where?

The news that K1 is departing the Welsh Highland for an unspecified sojourn at Statfold got me thinking I should post a wee gallery of our 4mm scale version on Bron Hebog.

This development was not unexpected to those in the know, indeed we dropped a cheeky hint at the Greenock exhibition of what was coming down the line.

Call me a pessimist but I’m not expecting to see it steaming again on the WHR any time soon.....

K1 and the FR is a relationship which has blown hot and cold over the last 50 years, and this seems to be one of its chillier periods.

It was as purchased in what can only can be seen as a spasm of romantic optimism, was shipped off  -  with relief -  to York after a period languishing at Harbour station, and then picked up again in the 90s as a convenient curiosity to give the WHR project a veneer of heritage.

But I don’t think the FR’a heart was ever in it.

I well remember the nickname ‘K-when?’ during its protracted restoration.

Yes, I fully understand the commercial logic of concentrating on a core fleet of NGG16s, and that is is not kind to the track, but I cannot believe there is not some role for it.

Consider this season just gone where there have been all kind of exotic double headed combinations to keep the service going when a Garratt ‘goes tech’.

It’s not as if the FR doesn’t have other indulgences - I guess K1’s face just doesn’t fit.

First Class

It was great to be sent a picture of 152 almost at the finish line!

The model has been given a coat of varnish and Himself is waiting for that to harden before final assembly with the glazing and the handrails.

The passengers seem ready to go for a ride!

The Old Ladies

Our old Blanche is back together and has had a little test run with her sister on the Bron Hebog fiddle yard.



She still needs her fly cranks painted red but it’s great to see the old girl in action again after 8 years inactivity.

A Missed Opportunity

I wasn't able to get to the Warley exhibition at the NEC at the weekend, but I sent a spy in the form of Himself to report back for me.

It pains me to say that I was very disappointed with what I've seen so far of the prototype for the Peco/Kato England engines, which I had been so looking forward to.

I don't know whether it's the case that the early sample they showed is very misrepresentative of what the finished product will look like, or whether this is not going to be what I had hoped for.

I can overlook a rough 3D print on the body but I can't deny I'm worried by what's underneath it.

I'm told it's temporarily mounted on a Kato N gauge loco chassis, but the question is whether this is indicative of the quality of the mechanism we're going to get?

Look at the way the piston pokes out of the front of the cylinder.

See how crude the crosshead and the slidebars are.

Is this what we are to expect in the finished product?

The one thing that is really going to make of break this model for me is going to be the chassis.

When you look at a Small England the really distinctive features are those little wagon wheels with very few spokes, and the slender, round-profile motion.

That is what I really want to see from this model.

England engine bodies have been around for more than 60 years in both white metal and now 3D printers.

We don't need a big manufacturer to produce them, it's a decent chassis for them which we've been crying out for.

But after this weekend I have to confess I've got the fear that Kato could let us down.

Look at what else was on their stand.

Are they in the business of selling models or toys?

You'll also spot a very early stage of a Double Fairlie body in there among the dinosaur wagons and the rocket contraptions.

Observe also the ridiculously tight radius of the circle of track the grey England is sitting on and the yawning chasm between the locomotive and the tender.

I notice that the first question that appears in online forums about new RTR OO9 locos is what radius curves they will go around (sigh) and again I fear this engine is being designed with rabbit warrens in mind rather than serious modellers.

I do hope I'm wrong, I really do.

The name of the game in model railway retailing these days is pre-ordering, which is why the manufacturers are so keen to show off samples to generate advanced sales.

Except in this case all the Peco / Kato sample has achieved is made me want to hold off until I can be more certain about what precisely I will be getting for my money.

A missed opportunity indeed.

Ladies Falsies

The final stage of rehabilitating our Blanche is to give the lady back her modesty with a set of outside frames.

In this case she's faking it, because the outside frames are just pieces of very thin, carefully-shaped, styrene which slip between the wheels and the those iconic red fly cranks.

The original ones have long since gone brittle and cracked so Himself has made up a new set.

The reason we went for plastic was to be sure that there could never be any issues with them shorting out against the frame or the wheels.