Alternative Histories

If there's one part of the Festiniog which really tantalises me it's the abandoned former track bed leading from Dduallt station to the Old Moelwyn Tunnel.

I suppose I'm not unusual in that.  I mean, why else would there be so many heritage railways which have been restored from dereliction if it wasn't that enthusiasts became fixated on the idea of seeing trains run again along those pathways that have been reclaimed by nature?

I've often looked at the stub siding which continued straight on behind the signal box at Dduallt and wondered what might have happened if the FR had never been to surrender the old route through the Ystradau Valley in the 1950s. 

What's the alternate history, and how might it have come about?

How about instead of the Ffestiniog Power Station being built as the UK's first pumped-storage hydroelectricity scheme the power-that-be decided it would be simpler to dust off the pre-war proposals to install the technology at the Loch Sloy station next to Loch Lomond.

That would also have been a 360 MW (megawatt) installation, the same as Tanygrisiau - instead it was built with less than half the capacity and cannot pump the water back up the mountain after generating, relying on rainfall to replenish its supply.

What might have happened on the FR if the line was never flooded by the lower reservoir?

Here's my guess.

I don't believe the FR would have raced back to Blaenau as fast as it could.

My reading of history is that Alan Garraway was a pragmatic manager and was very insistent with the Board that once the railway had re-opened to Tan y Bwlch in four short years it was essential to pause and consolidate.

He knew the track was only-just serviceable in many places and required proper re-engineering.  

The same went for the locomotives and rolling stock, too.

He also knew this took money, and the further each train travelled the fewer payloads it could carry each day.  Increased fares from a longer journey would not necessarily bring in as money.

There was a sweet spot where you maximised revenue to a given amount of wear and tear, and Tan y Bwlch was the place.

It took a full decade to reopen to the temporary terminus at Dduallt.  During that period work had also begun on the Deviation, and additional locomotives and new carriages appeared, but I don't think it could have been achieved substantially faster than that.

And what of the locomotives and carriages?

The size of FR rolling stock had always been limited by the bore of the Moelwyn Tunnel, so the assumption may be that trains would remain at the dimension of the 'Bowsider' stock.

The abandonment of the old route meant it was Garnedd Tunnel which becomes the de facto limit, and very cautious efforts were made to nibble away inside it, but its geology is precarious.

However it was enough for the Barn carriages built in the 1960s to pass through.

The FR had strong links with the military at this time.  Remember how army engineers would come and lend a hand with the efforts to rebuild the line to Dduallt.

Is it possible they could have been enticed to come and practice their dynamiting skills opening up the old tunnel a little?

After all, the Deviationists found a way to blast their own tunnel by hiring in three mining engineers who completed that job in the space of two years.

So perhaps the FR may have reached Blaenau some time in the 1970s, and probably terminated next at the Stesion Fein site next to BR, because the roads around that area would probably not have been rebuilt in the same way if the power station wasn't there.

We'd perhaps still have another magnificent period piece station at Tanygrisiau, and gravity trains could run all the way from Blaenau Ffestiniog still.

Would that be a better FR?

What do you think?

Going Potty

My current workbench project - to make a replacement for the model of replica NWNGR carriage 24, which we gave away for a very good cause -  continues in fits and starts.

In recent decades the FR has been able to indulge itself in making ever-more intricate replicas and restorations which include all sorts of embellishments which would have rejected as pointless fripperies at the start of the revival era.

Among those details are cosmetic lamp pots on the carriage roofs.

Carriage 24 has them, and I've always found them very tricky to model.

You can't really get up there to measure them.  Even if you are privileged to look around the carriage works - as I have been in the past - you'd need a scaffold to get up there in safety.

And photographing from ground level the perspective is altered.

On my first attempt at 24 I didn't really get it right - they were too tall and thin.  As you can judge in the picture above.

So for this replacement I set out to make them fatter, and shorter.

While in Wales a few weeks ago, while 24 was in the platform at Porthmadog between duties on the Welsh Highland runs to Beddgelert, I stood on my tippy-toes, held my phone as high as I could above my head and too a reference snap.

At the weekend I dug out my selection of Evergreen styrene tubes - I'm down to the dregs of a pack which must be at least 10 or more years old - and knocked up something which I hope looks a bit better.

Because I need two I used the one I made in styrene as a master to make a mould and the next day cast a pair in resin.

Here's how they look in place on the carriage roof.

Better?

I hope so.

Joined-Up Thinking

Recently one of the followers on our Facebook page posted a comment asking if we'd ever considered connecting together our two Festiniog layouts Dduallt and Minffordd.

It's an interesting question, and the answer why we probably won't includes a number of hurdles we would have to overcome, so I thought it might make the basis of a decent blog piece.

I have to say it's a beguiling idea, and one I've often toyed with while daydreaming.

Long before we embarked on the Minffordd project I would often think wouldn't it be nice to have the space to set up Dduallt as a home layout, and instead of operating it end-to-end between fiddle yards - as we do at exhibitions - make it into a continuous run.

My daydream was always that we could have Dduallt on one side and Tan y Bwlch at the other, perhaps with an exit to a storage / fiddle yard as well, perhaps making use of the truncated route to the disused Moelwyn Tunnel behind the signal box.

That plan has never gone any further than a daydream, however.

So, now that we have two layouts, why not try to connect them now?

Here are the things you'd have to overcome.

HEIGHTS

As you would expect for model of Dduallt Spiral the layout is not flat!

Therefore the entry / exit points to the fiddle yards at each end of the run are at different levels.

Having never compared the measurements it’s also entirely possible that the height off the ground of the FR mainline on Minffordd is different yet again.

To connect them would inevitably involve some degree of ‘ski ramp’ at each end and the height that would have to be climbed by ascending trains would dictate how long these ramps have to be - which would have an impact on the viability of the idea.

CONTROL

As it stands the two layouts are using different systems.

Dduallt was built for plain old DC whereas Minffordd is all-singing DCC with sound.

It wouldn’t be impossible  to lash-up a way to make them work together on either control system, but, you couldn’t use both as once, nor would the stock be interchangeable.

And that’s an issue because Dduallt and its steep gradient was built assuming we would always use heavy white metal or brass locomotives with the traction to pull reasonable trains up the hill.

The latest ready to run locos - lovely as they are - really can’t cope with anything other than  flat layout with our stock.

ERAS

The other consideration - albeit the one that’s easiest to overlook - is that the layouts are set around 20 years apart.

Minffordd is depicted in the generic 1960s and Dduallt at the end of the 1980s with stock that’s anything up to the present day.

ORIENTATION 

The logical thing would be to have the layouts positioned back-to-back.

Unfortunately, that would see Up trains leaving Minffordd emerging on the Deviation on Dduallt as if they’d just left Tanygrisiau,  and the same in the opposite direction.

To be prototypical the connections would need a crossover at some point, making them much more complicated to build.

SPACE

Of course, the biggest obstacle is simply where we would ever find the room to put it all together to test and play with it.

Unless anyone wants to donate a large, secure, space somewhere on the west coast of Scotland to us? No, thought not…

Identical Twin

I've been neglecting the blog a little while I was away on holiday in Wales with Himself and The Trainee.

If you follow the Bron Hebog and Minffordd page on Facebook then you'll have been able to follow the narrow gauge adventures we were getting up to, with many photos and video snippets.

One of the missions to be accomplished during our stay in Porthmadog was the collection of a model from the shop at Harbour Station which I hinted about a few weeks ago on these pages.

Many of our readers guessed the intention with the Lowmac wagon is to replicate the arrival of Linda on the FR in 1962, on hire, to help with an acute motive power shortage.

A notable part of the story is that she made the journey by rail from Port Penrhyn, via Afon Wen, and was transhipped from standard to narrow gauge in Minffordd Yard exactly as Spooner would have intended.

There's a chance you're already one step ahead of me here and thinking; 'Hang on!  Haven't they already got a Linda?'

Yes, you're quite correct.

Linda in FR green with her 'fat England tender' is part of our core loco fleet for the mainline passenger services along the back of the scene.

So what's the excuse?

There's none.  

It's just a pure indulgence. 

And we're not apologising for it. 

A model railway is supposed to be fun!

There are some adaptations which need to be made before it goes into service (sort of).

Linda was propped up on the Lowmac with sleepers, and secured with chains, so we're doing our best to replicate that with some chunky styrene strips.

These have got some extra bits which will connect with the underside of the Bachmann loco to help ensure it doesn't topple off the wagon while being transported around the layout.

And we also need to find something for that most vital PQR embellishment - a bucket to sit in front of the smokebox!

Weather Update

We've tried a lot of new things as part of the Minffordd project, such as moving to DCC control and sound, and smaller code track.

It's also the first time we've tried weathering on any of our rolling stock, having always kept anything we bought - or made - looking 'box fresh'.

But like with any new skill you have to practice and develop, but that's a scary prospect when you're dealing with the very latest high-spec models (at high-spec prices!)

So just like with the more ambitious DCC projects I decided it would be best to invest in paying an expert to do it, and having been enormously impressed by the images I saw on his Facebook page I asked Tom Foster to quote for the job.

This morning I was very excited to receive the studio portraits of the what he's done with the locos, and I'm absolutely delighted!

What's great about Tom's service is you can specify precisely how you'd like the model to look.

For the locos I sent away I asked for our Dapol 'Bradley Manor' to look as if the lads at Aberystwyth shed had given it a really thorough going over with some oily rags.

Yes, I know when they did this the locos weren't working the 'coast section' to Pwllheli, but I'm citing Rule 1!

The others I said I wanted to look a lot more like they'd been worked hard without much attention from the cleaners.

The Collett Goods is Himself's favourite - and in nearly every picture I've seen of them at work on the Cambrian they look a lot like this.

This is now getting a very old tooling, dating from the Mainline days at the start of the 1980s, but I remember it being pretty cutting edge back then.

And in my opinion when it's given a really proper finish like this I still think it holds up really well, and the re-engineered Bachmann version we have runs as well as anything else on DCC.

The other two models are bang up to date.

The Dapol 43XX Mogul runs like a peach  (I know, fruit doesn't run...) but it did look unnaturally spotless and shiny out of the box.

I think the dirty look here really shows off the quality of the model so much better.

The same goes for the Hornby Standard 2 2-6-0 MT which is a terrific performer on the layout, but again was too clean for you to suspend your disbelief.

I'm so looking forward to being able to run these on Minffordd at our exhibitions in the autumn, I really do believe they'll lift the whole layout.

Thanks Tom!

Replica Roofing

It's been quite a few weeks since I've done any work on the NWNGR replica replacement carriage.

A couple of nights ago while half the household were out for the night taking in some of the action at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow I ran out of excuses and put in a couple of hours.

I drilled the holes in the chassis where the bogie will go and then tackled the roof skin.

As I described in detail in this article this is a two-stage process which involves fixing some supporting lengthways ribs before stretching a styrene skin over the top and bonding it firmly at each side so it doesn't spring free.

This is one of those jobs that you want to do in one session which is probably why I've been putting it off for a while.

And perhaps because of the nice summer weather we've this year the motivation to hide away at the workbench and do some scratch building has been a little lacking,

There's a reason why we tend to think of railway modelling as an autumn and winter activity.

Moelwyn Returns!

I'm delighted to be able to report that Moelwyn has returned unscathed from its 800-mile round trip in the post.

Our vintage Meridian-kit model of the FR's venerable Baldwin Tractor has undergone a surgical operation for a motor transplant and a digital 'pacemaker'.

In other words it's now DCC sound fitted.

The operation was carried out by our respected surgeon, Sven, at Tramfabriek, and I cannot speak highly enough about the speed and quality of service we've received.

The Mashima motor which it was fitted with, and which filled all the space under the bonnet, has been replaced with a very small coreless motor, which has left room for the Zimo sound chip and a stay alive pack.

This has historical precedent in that the real Moelwyn had its original petrol engine replaced with a Gardner diesel when the FR was being revived to make it a more economical and useful machine.

The speaker has been lodged underneath the cab roof and is only really visible if you look at the model from below, which few people at an exhibition are likely to do.

The Royal Mail should also get a shout out for safely and swiftly getting Moelwyn there and back.

I did fork out for their premium Special Delivery service but in my view it was worth every penny when dealing with a genuinely priceless model.

Keep an eye on our social media channels and I'll soon be posting a clip of it in action so you can see and hear it in action.

Your first opportunity to see it live will be at the Ayr MRG exhibition in Troon (Ayrshire, Scotland) on 19th / 20th September.