Only 8 Years Late

We now have a full set of 3 13m saloons after Himself finished off painting and assembling 2044 and 2045.

This means we've almost caught up with the real WHR in the size of our carriage fleet - our model of 2046 is in the process of being painted right now.

On the real railway three carriages were built in 2007 and our models of them spent quite a few years stored unpainted in a drawer while Himself - quite rightly - concentrated his efforts on getting Bron Hebog built.

In fact, to be pedantic, we have more carriages than the WHR because we have models of the original semi-open 2020 and the service car 2011 which it was rebuilt into.

From The Carriage Works

Himself has been putting in some long days in a continuing effort to clear the backlog of carriages waiting to be finished off.

He complains that it takes him as long to put on the final details, such as handrails, paint them and then glaze them as it does for me to build them in the first place. He has a point.

First in this post we see the last two of the 13m saloons which I built a number of years back - 2044 & 2045

The main job on these has been to fabricate and fit the handrails, which Himself tells me is his least favourite task.

The difficulty is that the latest designs of carriage have handrails which are attached with a T style post at each end rather than a nice, simple 90 degree corner which could be bent in a jig in seconds from just one piece of wire.

As Boston Lodge is continuing to knock out new rolling stock with this style of accessory there doesn't seem to be any prospect of his life getting any easier.

Also just about ready for traffic now is our rebuilt 116 which I have to say is looking rather tasty.

(And, yes, we are aware that the end doors are currently painted differently. This is a period piece.)

All it requires now is a pair of proper-sized, modern FR bogies.

I'll have some news on those this weekend all being well.

More Painting Progress

Also going through the paint shop at the moment is the last of the 3 13m WHR saloons I batch built a number of years ago.

This is number 2045.

Yes, we are a little behind the times. This carriage entered service on the real railway when it was still terminating at Rhyd Ddu!

Himself is also cracking on with our replacement carriage 10 (Van 2 in more ways that one for us!) which is being finished in the Col. Stephens livery it runs in currently.

Again this has prompted some colour debate about the shade that should go on the ends and along the frame.

Do you go with something at the redder end of the colour chart or more orange?

After much discussion and comparison with photographs we have of the carriage we've gone for the more orange option - in fact it is called Lining Orange on the Humbrol colour chart.

It's a very tricky business.