Minffordd Update: Cabin Fever

This week has seen very satisfactory progress on the latest building project to make the Minffordd signal box / ground frame cabin.

The main structure is complete and the biggest remaining construction task is to form the steps up to the door.

As I wrote in a previous post, the first job was to create a master for the window frames which could be cast in resin in multiple.

Once they had cured and been cleaned of flash they were built into an outer styrene frame.

The front and the sides of the cabin were built around these with a laminate structure with wooden slat effect styrene and embossed brick styrene.

With carefully mitred edges to the brickwork prepared this was bonded together into a box.

When it came to making the 'crinkly tin' roof my habit of hoarding off-cuts paid dividends.

The transparent Wills corrugated sheet I had tucked away in the drawer is sold old it was the pack I bought for making the entrances to the wooden toilet block on Dduallt more than 30 years ago!

This accounts for why it is very much yellowed now, rather than clear.

Because it is so thin and bendy it's been glued onto plain styrene sheet to try to ensure the roof doesn't sag.

Minffordd Update: Chute Gallery

The most obvious progress to report on the layout this week has been going on deep in the 'Coal Hole'.

Himself has been working on recreating the chutes used to transfer bulk loads, such as coal and ballast, from standard gauge wagons into the FR narrow gauge waggons on the tracks below.

This has been done using styrene to represent the concrete support structure, with brass used for the chutes themselves.

I think this has the potential to be one of the most unusual and appealing cameos on the layout - although we're not going to be silly enough to attempt to transfer any substances from the big wagons into the small, you'll have to imagine that bit.

It will, however, be one of those things which makes it unmistakeably Minffordd Yard.

The one thing that will be authentic about it is that the chutes encroach well into the FR loading gauge, ready to catch out the unwary who forget, or allow gravity to drag their engine or vans further down into the coal hole than they can venture.

Hopefully we won't have to straighten out bodywork or attend to dents the way Boston Lodge Works has had to over the years.....

Minffordd Update: A Start On The Ground Frame

I've decided to tackle the Cambrian ground frame building next, and thought it would be best to tackle the hardest bit first - the window frames.

These are a fun challenge, but very fiddly to fabricate from strip sections which are no more than 0.5mm square.

(That's a 1p piece in the picture, for reference.)

So what I've decided to do - much the same as with the saw tooth barge board in the previous post - is to make a master from I can cast copies,

I'll need four of each for this project.

Notice that I've not called it the 'signal box', because although the pretty little cabin on the station platform contained more than a dozen levers, they only controlled the points in the yard.

Aside from the Weigh House this is the only other building on the layout for which I have any sort of drawing to guide me.

I am having to adapt a drawing for one of the Dutton 'Type 4' boxes which were very similar to the Minffordd cabin, except the one I'm building has larger sliding windows made up for a 6 pane unit and a 4 pane unit  (on the drawing it's 4 and 4).

My box also doesn't have a chimney breast at the rear, I suppose because it was never permanently occupied and only opened up when it was necessary to shunt the yard.

Minffordd Update: Hell's Teeth

The Minffordd Weigh House has no shortage of challenges for the scratch builder who wants to make their effort look halfway like the real thing.

There's the very neat dressed stone blocks and quions, which are a distinctive feature, as well as the diamond-shape slates on the roof.

And once you've found a way to replicate those you look at the finishing details, such as the barge boards, and run your fingers through (what remains of) your hair wondering how on earth you're going to produce that distinctive toothy look.

Fortunately, this is where resin casting makes things much easier.

All I had to do - all, he says.... - was chop two sets of tiny triangles, large and small, and glue them alternately to a broader strip of plastic to make one complete barge board.

I used this as a master to resin cast four copies which could be reversed and used on the opposite side.

It was also to my advantage that by the late 1960s this original feature was looking a little worse for wear, and so it wouldn't matter if a few of the points on the castings were less than perfect, because by this stage they most certainly weren't on the real thing!

Minffordd Update: Landscaping

We've been back just over a week but already the bulk of the destructive alterations to the layout we decided were needed after our research visits are in hand.

The 'extra' scenery between the FR mainline and the bottom of the exchange yard, has been hacked away to make room for both of the Maenofferen sheds.

The point work at the end of the upper run-round loop has been lifted so the turnouts can be repositioned to allow a connection to the siding which squeezes between the large and small shed.

At the other end, the original square bridge beams have been hacked out and I spend the weekend designing and casting some replacements to the correct bow-string profile and it looks like they're going to fit very sweetly in the gap.

It just goes to show what you can achieve quickly when you're sufficiently motivated.

Minffordd Update: Bridge Replacement

I mentioned in the previous post that one of the inadvertent errors we discovered during our research week in Wales was the design of the bridge which carries the lane running from Boston Lodge to Minffordd over the Cambrian just west of the station.

Himself has wasted no time ripping out the old Peco plastic girders he'd fitted...

And at my end I spent a couple of hours this afternoon making a styrene master of a bow string girder to replace it with.

A wooden palisade fence will be added on top to bring it up to the full height, and I shall cast a couple of extra ones to do the other side of the bridge.

The idea is it should end up looking like this.

Dynamic, decisive action!

Minffordd Update: Excavations Required

It's not often you return from a research site visit happy that you're going to have to tear things apart, but that's the unusual situation we find ourselves in after our week in Wales.

One of the objectives was to have a good poke around Minffordd Yard, and run the tape measure over some of the buildings, and also to plagerise from the beautiful diorama of Minffordd which is now kept in the museum at the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway.

Our number one concern was about the Maeofferen slate sheds which are a prominent feature at the bottom of the FR's yard.

We'd reached the reluctant conclusion that we only had room to include the larger of the pair on our layout.

Peering through the perspex cover at the museum exhibit (which I believe was built by Dave Perrin) we were confounded to see that he'd managed to find room for both!

The difference, we discovered as we stood and compared with photos on our phones, was that we'd made the slope of the land down from the FR mainline far too generous, which you can see from the photos above.

In fact, when later inspecting the sheds, it become clear that the smaller Maenofferen Bach is slightly cut into the hill.

With a bit of remedial landscaping, and some repositioning of the sidings, we should be able to get both in.

Other errors came to light during our visit.

We had puzzled about the bridge over the lane which forms the scenic break for the Cambrian at the Porthmadog end, and decided that we probably wouldn't be too far wrong with a bog-standard square girder.

But flicking through a book on the shelves in the Harbour station shop, just on the off-chance that it might contain some pictures of Minffordd, I finally discovered the answer!

This bridge, before it was rebuilt in more modern times, had a bow string girder with a wooden palisade on top.

So another bit of re-engineering beckons.

And I also solved another mystery that had been puzzling me about the weigh house building which I am making.

I knew that at some point the original windows at the Porthmadog end were replaced by something a lot more domestic-looking, but I had no idea when that was.

A chance conversation in the pub with a long-standing FR figure revealed that he had scanned a collection of photographs from the 1960s, one of which was a rare picture of this end of the building.

© J Owen

This also revealed a small extra building which I never knew existed, as well as confirming the original, ornate, bargeboards were still in place.

Who said no good ever comes from going to the pub?