Summer Holiday Traffic

Realism on a model railway is a funny thing.

Sometimes it is possible for things to be too accurate, as strange as that may seen.

When looked at in miniature form they just seem wrong.

I was thinking about that this evening as I was placing the loose vehicles as we set up Minffordd for the Model Rail Scotland show which opens tomorrow (Friday 27th March to Sunday 29th).

In the back left hand corner of our scene is a short section of the main road into Porthmadog.

After setting out two or three of them, plus our Crosville bus heading for Blaenau, I wondered whether I'd crowded the scene a little?

And then I thought again and added as many as I could until they were nose to tail.

Because I'd remembered the hours I'd spent in a baking hot car as a child sat in traffic jam to pay the toll for crossing the Cob which often stretched all the way back to Penrhyndeudraeth - in my memory, at least.

So if visitors at the SEC this weekend engage us in conversation and feel moved to comment that there are 'too many cars on that road,' I shall feel free to contradict them.

Calm Before The Storm

I popped in at Himself's place the other day and couldn't resist taking a few phone snaps of Minffordd with the late afternoon sunshine creating an almost sunset-like effect over the layout.

All the adjustments and improvements made through the winter are complete and have been thoroughly tested, and now it's ready to be taken down, bolted to its travelling frames and taken for the short ride to the SEC in Glasgow for the Model Rail Scotland show which opens on Friday morning.

Before too long I would hope one of the magazines will arrange for a proper photographer to come and do a proper shoot which do it more justice than I can manage with an ageing iPhone.

This view, which is rather like the one you'd get standing on the roof of the down platform shelter at Minffordd, reminds me of one of the things which makes it such a different kind of narrow gauge model - the double track main line effect.

This is a very the public doesn't really get to see, and is one of those bonuses of being a layout operator. 

Unfortunately, those who are not familiar with the FR don't get to see what an attractive building the Weigh House is, only getting to see it's rather plain back wall.

For now it all looks very sleepy and abandoned, but in a couple of days the Simplex will be busily phut-phut-phutting around the yard, up and down the ramp to the 'coal hole' while mineral wagons and empty gunpowder vans are shunted along the long siding high above.

If you're able to come along to the show please say hello to the team.

For those who can't we'll do our best to share pictures and videos on our social media so if you don't already do so follow us on Facebook, Bluesky and X (the the continuation of an account does not indicate endorsement or otherwise of the proprietor....)

A Mickey Mouse Layout

 We're going try something daring in Glasgow next weekend - running a guest loco!

This is always fraught with risk, especially on a layout with extremely tight curves and using Kadee couplings where it pays to make sure everything is set to the same standards.

However, with the extra train capacity in the fiddle yard extensions, and with a question mark about the usefulness of the Dukedog, I thought it would be prudent to ask the Medical Director if he fancied bringing along his sound fitted Ivatt 2MT - a class sometimes nicknamed a Mickey Mouse, I know not why - because they were also to be found on the Cambrian at this time.

This particular engine 46334 did not work the Cambrian under BR ownership but is well known for doing so in preservation having been called to substitute for a failed Standard 4MT when steam first returned to the coast in the mid-1980s.

I expect the greatest challenge with this loco will be the Medical Director’ idiosyncratic technical set up.

In common with much of his fleet this loco operates in the reverse of what you might expect.

Select forward on the controller and the loco goes backwards, and vice versa.

Who is going to be the first among the crew to forget this minor detail?

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.......

This Is Spinal Tender

More fiddle yard roads on Minffordd means room for more trains, which means we need more locomotives to haul them.

Now that's the definition of a virtuous circle for a railway modeller if ever I heard one!

So for the Model Rail Scotland show in a couple of weeks we're augmenting our fleet with another Cambrian stalwart, a Standard 4MT tender.

By happy coincidence it is a loco which spent around six months based at Machynlleth between 1962-63 so it no doubt passed through Minffordd many times.

This pre-loved Bachmann model arrived in Santa's sleigh a couple of months ago and has been waiting in the queue to be chipped and speaker fitted.

And what a speaker!

I'm still a complete novice about this DCC business so I rely on some expert friends who recommended what looks like some kind of miniaturised subwoofer which just about squeezes into the tender space.

My friend said it would be loud - he wasn't exaggerating.

That's probably no bad thing.

At the first two shows we've taken Minffordd to we've been positively deafened by DCC diesels on neighbouring layouts, with owners of whistling English Electric types who like to turn to volume up to 11.

Well, now we can play them at their own game if it happens again

Hoots Mon!

 There's juice loose about this hoose!

(OK, some of you may be too young to get the reference to the Wine Gums advert from the telly many decades ago.)

The pun is that Himself has decided that point motors are not what they used to be and decided to try fitting  some frog juicer units to improve the reliable switching of polarity on a couple of the key points in the fiddle yard on Minffordd.

Although the point blades went across OK we were relying on the switch on the motor unit to change the polarity on the frog, which was somethings a bit of a hit & miss affair.

This comes after a succession of failures in the fiddle yard on Bron Hebog where motors have failed on us, sometimes when the wire which moved the point blades has sheared, which is a really odd kind of failure.

We've keeping everything crossed that this will result in more reliable running for the show in Glasgow on a couple of weeks.

(Not) A Signal Box

Not so long ago I got into a minor dispute on a social media site with a correspondent who expressed the opinion that Minffordd looked like it was going to be quite a nice layout when it was finished.

"But it is finished!", I replied.

"How can it be?", they retorted. "There aren't any signals!"

I suppose the confusion is understandable because it looks like it's got a signal box, only it isn't.

Minffordd was in the middle of the block section between Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth.

This small building is just a luxury ground frame to house the levers which control the points giving access to the exchange yard, which were unlocked by putting the section token into an intermediate instrument.

In common with the station building, which I described in this previous post, the ground frame cabin was scratch built.

I was given a big helping hand when a contact sent me a copy of the basic elevations of the various kinds of boxes found on the Cambrian.

This one at Minffordd was effectively a Dutton Type 4, which were typically found at crossings or some of the smaller passing stations, however I had to assume its dimensions were slightly larger because each of its sliding window units had 10 panes of glass, instead of just 8 featured in the drawing I had.

These window units were where I began the project.

I decided to make one set of window frames, fabricated from very thin styrene strip, and use them as a master from which I could cast copies in resin.

To give you an indication of how small they were this is a set positioned next to a UK 1 pence piece.

The smaller frame is around 10mm x 10mm.

Once enough of these had been cast they were placed within bigger frames, with them offset to allow for one to slide along behind the other.

Now I had all the window frames made I literally built the rest of the cabin around them.

This was also quite an involved process because the main part of the cabin was wooden, but it sat on a substantial brick base.

What I had to do was make it as a composite, using plain styrene sheet to get the shape of the sides and ends, and then fix the outer detail on top, using Slaters embossed brickwork sheet and moulded 'clapboard' from the Evergreen sheet range.

I also had to allow for vertical and horizonal strips to represent the outer framework.

Another challenge was how best to get the effect of the corrugated iron roof.

There are various products on the market, but some of them come as a very thick sheet, whereas the real material is so obviously thin.

So what I chose to use was the transparent glazing sheet from the Wills range, which I fixed onto plain pieces of sheet to act as the main roof structure.

There was one final challenge which was to find a way to replicate the ornate scallop design on the bargeboards.

This was as simple - and time-consuming - as shaping tiny pieces of styrene into semi-circles and gluing them on.

A lot of the detail, and the technique of the construction, isn't obvious when look at the completed cabin but I think it's a very pleasing little model, and one of my favourite things on the layout.

Go Anywhere Train

It occurred to me that despite having built up a large collection of Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland 009 stock over the last 30 years or so we have very few things which we use on all three of our layouts.

One of the exceptions is this delightful little consist.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have long regarded Britomart as the FR's most charming locomotive.

It arrived on the FR in 1965, having been bought by a group of FR staff and volunteers (some of whom read this blog) which puts it right in the era for our new Minffordd layout.

What makes Britomart almost unique among our fleet is that it has never changed colour.

Indeed, I understand it is still wearing the original coat of paint, resembling Great Northern Railway of Ireland blue, which it received when it came to the FR more than sixty years ago.

Unlike our England engines, Fairlies and Ladies which have changed colour, or some other aspect of their appearance, over the years it is perfectly correct whether it is running on Minffordd, Dduallt or Bron Hebog.

The vintage twin set 11 and 12 (I insist on calling them by those numbers!) are among the handful of inter-operable carriages we have in our collection because they have worn the green and ivory livery - or variations of it - in the 1960s but also now in the 21st Century.

Our latest incarnation of Britomart - for we have had three - is one of the super little Bachmann models which has had a DCC chip, speaker and stay alive crammed into it.

Four years ago the prototype for this conversion was given a chance to stretch its legs on Bron Hebog.

Crinkly Tin All Round

One of the buildings on the layout which I'm surprised doesn't get more comments - or at least hasn't so far - is the Nissen hut perched above the 'coal hole'.

It's a rather incongruous structure to be found amid the decaying remains of an intricate Victorian freight transfer system, you might have thought, but no one at the exhibitions we've taken Minffordd to so far appears to have questioned its presence in the scene.

You might have thought it was a 'preservation era' addition - because, let's be honest, the FR has a pretty poor record for augmenting it's estate with inappropriate structures..... - but, in fact, it is an Old Company relic.

It was placed at the rear of the Goods Shed  around about 1940 to act as undercover storage for the sawmill which was being operated by the tenants of the Goods Shed - the railway by this stage trying to earn every penny it could by any means.

When the tenants moved out, and the railway moved back in, it was put to use by the Infrastructure Department and lasted until the mid-2010's when it was demolished to make way for the most excellent Waggon Tracks shed.

This archive picture from the 1960s shows the scene during the period we have modelled.

It was a late decision include the hut on our layout.

I'd initially left it out believing it might crowd the scene and give away how much we had compressed the yard.

But as so often I happened across something which made me think 'I wonder...'  and that something was discovering the Ratio plastic Nissen Hut kit.

Researching the dimensions, and making a mock up in cardboard, it transpired that it would be a perfect fit for the scene despite our Goods Shed being considerably under-scale, and the design of the kit allowed for you make it as long, or short, as you wished.

Making the kit up was very straightforward, although I have adapted it a little to represent the dwarf walls the real one sat on.

What was more challenging was replicating the paint - or was it even some sort of bitumen? - that the real one seemed to be covered in during the period.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and it seems to sit in the scene quite naturally.