This carriage is perhaps the most appropriate of all the rolling stock we run on our other layout Dduallt.
When it was built it first saw use on a special shuttle service on the first section of the Deviation, around the spiral as far as Gelliwiog.
The carriage worked in a push-pull operation with the diesel Moel Hebog out of the bay platform at the top end of the station, which is also a feature of our model of Dduallt which is nominally set in 1988, the last year of the 'classic' Deviation trackplan there.
In fact 110 ran its first season incomplete, in a rather skeletal, semi-open condition until it could go back into Boston Lodge at the end of the summer to be completed.
It set the style for a the FR's second generation of modern era carriages which were markedly different to the wooden-bodied 'Barns' of the 1960's.
The 'Tin Carrs' had inward opening doors and entrance vestibules at each end, with a distinctive dome shape to the roof above and with windows either side of the corridor connections, allowing a view through into the neighbouring carriage in much the same fashion as many subway trains around the world.
They had very distinctive ribs on the bodyside beneath each window pillar which were arranged in a rather traditional pattern with alternate narrow droplights in between larger fixed windows.
Compare it to a side-on view of one of the NWGNR Ashbury 'Summer' carriages and you will see a very similar design theme.
110 remains unique because it was much longer than the 'production' carriages which followed and were built on ex-Isle of Man Railway underframes. This prototype was built with a central spine and is also quite distinctive on the FR in that it has no visible frame beneath the body.
110 had its push pull controls removed in 1990 and ours mostly runs, as the real one does, towards the top of end of a carriage set, as the last corridor vehicle before the so-called 'lock ups' which are coupled in front to add capacity as required. With this role in mind I built the model with its corridor connections closed at the Blaenau end.
As part of a noble tradition of FR singletons (along with the likes of 116 and 122) 110 has always been one of my favourites.
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