Yo Bro!

Last weekend at Model Rail Scotland I finally got around to doing something I'd been meaning to do for years, to replace one of my very first 009 models from nearly 30 years ago.

It was the Dundas plastic kit for the WHHR's 'Bro Madog Eisteddfod' carriage which was built at Gelert's Farm in the late '80s.

It may strike those you know me as an FR carriage anorak as strange but at the time I really didn't know my Bug Boxes from my Barns and I recall thinking that what I'd bought was a model of the iconic observation cars 100 and 101.

I think it was probably the 3 end windows which made me think that.

(To be fair on myself, I also remember asking the trader who was selling the kits whether it was a model of an FR carriage and he didn't demur.)

I thought that perhaps I could pull the wool over some eyes by painting it in then new FR 'Mountain Prince' livery - and it looks very good, I reckon - but ultimately I was just fooling myself.

In consequence we've never really run the carriage much at all.

That could be about to change, though,

When we take delivery of our Bachmann Baldwin tank we'll need something for it to haul around, and a number of years ago when the survivor 778 visited the WHHR this was one of the carriages it was running with.

(We'll just pretend it went all the way to Beddgelert.)

The issue is that the carriage was rebuilt with toplights added in - to make it look even more like an FR Barn! - but it would be hard to alter the existing carriage and painting over it with green would probably fill in the matchboard detail.

So what I've decided to do is buy another kit and adapt it while it's still a flatpack.

I'll probably also get some brass Worsley kits for the vintage bogie carriages to go with it in due course.