A Sense Of Purpose

The structures which probably most draw the eye on our layout, and anyone looking at the real Minffordd Yard are the two very large slate sheds.

You can't miss them whether you are passing on an FR or Cambrian train, or even driving past on the road.

It wasn't until after the period in which our layout is set that they ever became railway property.

However, they were always crucial to the purpose of the exchange yard, built as an outpost of the Maenofferen slate mining company for exporting their products by rail.

In our period they were being used by the Davies Brothers slate merchants who still stacked their slates on the wharf opposite the Cambrian station platform, although nearly everything came in and out by road.

To add operational interest we shunt narrow gauge waggons on the long sidings which run in front and in between the sheds even though at this time the FR respected its tenant's privacy at that end of the yard. 

A vital part of setting the scene is the large stack of slates behind the shed.

To represent this I was fortunate to be gifted some spare 3D printed blocks which I was able to cast dozens of copies from to complete the effect.

The sheds were built on a styrene skeleton with brick-effect pillars also cast in resin from a single master.

Much as with the real sheds most of the structure is the roof.

With such an expanse of slate I thought it was vital it the slates were in three dimensions so I made use of the thick Wills sheets.

Two of them needed to be bonded together on each elevation, doing my best to disguise the join.

Some people do wonder why we don't have tracks leading into the sheds, but this is actually a modern feature - well, 50+ years old now - after the FR took ownership and raised the roofs to make use of them to store rolling stock over the winter months.

Slippery Customer

The Dukedog is one of those mythical beasts for me.

There is only one, and I’ve never yet managed to see it, even through it spent the last couple of years on display in mid-Wales before its recent transfer to the Engine House on the SVR.

I was unable to resist the temptation to buy one of these Cambian icons to run on Minffordd, even though it is at the very edge of our 1960's period. 

I regret to say, however, that the performance of the Bachmann model is more than a little disappointing.

Oh yes. it runs very silkily, but don’t expect it to haul much.

On Minffordd where we have a sharp change in  gradient - a dip at the front of the scene to help with the illusion of the downhill plunge towards Portmadog - combined with curves which are on the radius 2 limit, leave it slipping to a stand with just two carriages!

Even the shortest of freight trains - and on the Cambrian there were some very short freight trains sometimes - it struggles because our brake vans have been fitted with retarding devices to help us shunt wagons on the gradient, thus causing a lot of drag.

So Himself is going to have a tinker to see what can be done.

A bit of search engine bothering has pulled up a couple of suggestions, one of which is to fit weaker spring between the front bogie and the frame, with a theory that if it is too strong it may lift the front driving wheels off the rail a little.

Another thing which has been tried before is to fit a spring above the drawbar to the tender to create a downward force on the back of the loco.

Himself will also be looking for places we’re some extra lead weight might be hidden, although the opportunities for that look to be limited on initial examination.

I shall, of course, report back in our findings.

If all else fails then expect a few light engine movements if you ever get to see Minffordd at an exhibition.

Flea Bites

Last week I posted about the 'Barn' carriages in their short-lived varnished wood livery which were scratch built for the Minffordd project.

They are one of three core passenger trains which we run on the main line which traverses the back of the scene.

The one which most people probably associate most with the FR is the short train of the historic four-wheelers known in the period as the 'Flying Flea'.

This began as an unadvertised relief train cobbled together to cope with the surge in passenger numbers the railway reopened to Tan y Bwlch in 1958.

It only lasted for a couple of years in this form, so, historically, the heyday of the 'Flea' is a before the period setting for our layout.

Later in the 1960s the four-wheel carriages were mostly added to the top of trains of bogie carriages as strengtheners.

However, it helps us operationally to have three carriage sets to rotate, and it's also a fun little train to run, particularly with a single engine at the head of it.

To get a consistent look we decided to use the RTR PECO 'bug boxes' for this set, instead of the brass kits we have for the carriages on Dduallt.

The Quarrymen's carriage was made from a Dundas plastic kit because during this time the last survivor, number 8, had been repaired with plain plywood, rather than the historic matchboard sides which is how PECO produced theirs.

The same is true for brake van number 2, which I also had to kit-bash.

That is sometimes marshalled on the end of this set as the guard's vehicle, or, as in the photo above, it may be running with the new van 1 which was among the first brand new passenger vehicles on the FR in the revival era.

This model was scratch built in styrene and running on a Dundas Quarrymen's chassis.

It makes such a fun contrast to the large standard gauge trains passing underneath on the Cambrian line and, I hope, adds to the charm of the layout for a casual viewer.

Seven Steamers

We’ve completed the loco line up for the show in Glasgow with the sound chipping of the 43XX which was a gift from the Engineering Consultant on the occasion of the layout’s debut last October.

These Churchward moguls probably aren’t the first class which comes to mind when you think of Cambrian steam but there’s plenty of photo evidence of them around the Porthmadog area in the 1960s.

It joins our existing ex-GWR allocation including the maid of all work, the Collett Goods, which is one of those in the stock box awaiting weathering.

Representative of the earliest years of our 1960s period is the Dukedog, a younger-than-it-looks class which was seeing out its final days.

This Bachmann model is limited by being rather light on its feet and can struggle a little with the gradients and drag on our tight curves, so loadings have to be managed carefully.

Making a rare foray up the coast line our iconic Cambrian engine, a Manor.

This period witnessed the changeover to the new Standard classes.

Our trio are made up of the Standard 4MT tender we featured a few days ago. 

The sole tank engine in our fleet, for now, is the 3MT.

And another needs-to-be-dirtied is the 2MT, not to be confused with its near relative the ex-LMS Ivatt design.

Small Can Be Beautiful

This weekend was a new experience for me, my first experience of an exhibition made up only of micro layouts, organised by one of our modeller friends here in the west of Scotland.

I have to confess that I've never been particularly sold on the concept of micro layouts, I've always thought I'd find them too limiting as a modeller - I like to be able to run a wide variety of trains and to have lots of operational options to stave off boredom - but being in a hall with nothing but micros I was impressed with how entertaining it all was.

What made this show a 'must attend' for me was the chance to see the N gauge version of a classic West Highland Extension scene, the Loch Nam Uamh viaduct, which is a magnificent piece of scenic modelling.

What I had not appreciated is that it is double-sided - effectively just an oval of track with a backscene in the middle and the opposite side is the girder bridge on the Oban line near Kilchurn Castle.

There was quite a bit of 009 interest as well, including a debut from a very promising young local modeller, Luca Jaconelli, who has branched out into narrow gauge inspired - so his Mum tells me - by our layouts, which is always lovely to hear.

There's a very Dinorwig feel about the multi-level gallery-style layout he was showing.

I was also very impressed by some of the visiting layouts from across the border, who showed a lot of commitment to come to Renfrewshire for one day, including this imagined west London scene at Greenford Broadway.

This show is clearly going from strength to strength, with ideas for expanding it next year, so if you have the opportunity to go along it comes with my recommendation.

Teak Freak

I'm very unusual, I freely admit it. 

I've always liked the original 'teak' livery on the FR's 'Barn' carriages, although, of course, it was nothing of the sort - more like 'Ronsealed Plywood'.

This affection probably stems from not being old enough to have actually seen one with my own eyes in this condition.

It's something you rarely see depicted in model form, so I hope it's something which will make Minffordd stand out as 009 modelling becomes ever more mainstream.

Carrying on as I did with Dduallt and Bron Hebog this set of four carriages were all scratch built in styrene.

I think my favourite of the set is the buffet car 14, which ran for a few years in this stripped back livery after initially entering FR service in the attractive green an ivory livery.

There is a lot of depth to the panelling on this carriage, and interesting details such as the ventilator hoods and the curves at the top of the main window frames.

Himself did a terrific job in his first goes at teak paint effect on these carriages, I love the way the doors look so much more weathered.

I would like to think that one day the FR heritage movement will reach the point where carriage 100 is recreated.

To me it seems just as much of a landmark moment in FR history as the appearance of the bug boxes or the first bogie carriages.

Information Station

There's one last piece of construction to complete on Minffordd ahead of the Model Rail Scotland show in Glasgow at the end of the month, and that is to fit an information panel for those who are curious to know precisely what it is they are looking at.

(We've learned the hard way that knowledge of perhaps the most famous of all narrow gauge railways is not something to make assumptions about in this part of the world....)

In a drive for economy Himself is adapting the panel which we built for Bron Hebog.

The fiddle yards on Minffordd are a few inches shorter than the panel, however, so a slice has been taken off the right-hand end, and there is also a section which needs to be removed to allow it to fit around one of the posts holding up the lighting canopy.

If Bron Hebog is ever taken out to a show again then we'd have a decision to make about whether to make a replacement, or just do without.

While he's taking care of the carpentry my task is to design a few panels to explain the whys, the wherefores and the how-we-did-its of Minffordd.

It will be obvious as soon as someone asks the classic question:  'Is this N gauge?'  (or variants of such) that clearly folk aren't bothering to read it.......