Pick Your Battles

A number of unfortunate motorists in North Wales know from bitter experience over the last two and a half decades that if you pick a fight with a Garratt there's only going to be one winner.

Thus the many level crossings around the Beddgelert area are festooned with bilingual signage warning of the dangers of failing to stop and take a good look at whether there's 62 tonnes of articulated locomotive heading your way.

It's details like that which really lift a scene on a layout and, I hope, sometimes make you look twice to check if it really is a model.

Himself has finished this painstaking task by planting all the poles around Cemetery Crossing which is just to the south of Goat Tunnel.

Careful observation and a lot of detailed photographs on many research visits have paid dividends.

Stop, Look, Listen

The fact that they're too often ignored by road users (and pedestrians)  isn't an excuse for not including the veritable forest of warning signs which surround the modern level crossing.

Himself has been very busy reducing, printing, cutting and sticking for the last week or so to populate the areas around the three crossings on Bron Hebog - including the one subsequently named Bron Hebog after the model provided the inspiration to an operating department puzzling how to differentiate the two crossings on the same lane leading out of Beddgelert.

(That's the one furthest away at the top of the picture.)

Himself assures me that all the signs are faithfully bilingual, too, using photographs of the real things, not a generic product.

I do think this view up the lane - I think it's one of the best on the layout.

Vegetation

I've written before about how we planned to build up the scenery in layers and these latest pictures show how Himself has been adding foliage on top of the basic long grass layer.

It also features our latest Garratt 138 showing off its new Narrow Planet number plates and works plates which are newly fitted.

The small one on the front water tank is particularly pleasing.

As well as adding bushes and other vegetation Himself has been working away at fitting the remaining level crossings with their anti-sheep grids.

These are made up from sets of triangular sections which I cast in resin for him.

He has calculated that around 70 more are required to finish all the crossings which he would like to get done in time for the next exhibition in a couple of weeks time.

So if you'll excuse me I'll stop writing now and get casting.

Crossings Continued

Himself has declared that he is bored of painting rolling stock having turned out at least 2 locomotives and more carriages than I can keep count of so far this winter, and has turned his attention back to the layout and continued with fitting the sheep grids on the level crossings.

These, you may recall, are made up using some triangular sections which I cast in resin because we were unable to source any styrene strip of the correct profile.

The picture above is where he has added to new bits to the right hand (Rhyd Ddu) end of Cemetery Crossing and below is the first of the occupation crossings on the curve leading out of the station.

Himself has calculated how many of these triangular strips will be required to complete all 6 level crossings on Bron Hebog.

Each crossing requires 46 strips - 23 on each side.

He tells me he's going to need another 161, and with each casting including four strips I'm going to have to make another 41 of them!

Grid Reference

The anti-sheep grid castings I produced last week appear to the just the job!

Himself has sent me these snaps of the prototype castings chopped to length, glued into position and painted, and I hope you'll agree they look very effective.

So far we've got just one grid completed, at the southern end of cemetery crossing.

Unfortunately for me this one installation has used up all the first six casts I sent down south so it looks as if I shall have to get the resin out again soonish.

Open Crossings

Himself has been doing some last detailing on some of the many crossing around the layout ready for the exhibition in Hull this weekend.

This is Bron Hebog Crossing positioned at the back of the layout. The fencing has been finished off and the loose road surface laid.

A few boulders have been positioned in the stream under the bridge which has yet to have any fake water added.

Further down, in the middle of the layout, is the crossing at Cwm Cloch farm. Here the road markings have been put in.

Above is the view from behind as the operators see it, and this is the view from the side where where the 'audience' stand...

Remember you can find details of the exhibition in Hull, and a link to the official website, on our Exhibition Diary page.

The Grid

One of the scenic features on the railway around Beddgelert which has caused us considerable head-scratching has been how to represent the anti-sheep grids which are are positioned either side of features such as level crossings or bridges in a (sometimes futile) attempt to stop livestock wandering onto the track.

Simple enough, you might think, it's just a question of laying some triangular section down.

The problem is getting hold of the correct kind of triangle.

Take a close look at the picture above and you'll see that the wooden beams have right angle and a flat section at the bottom and on one side - it's what's called a Isosceles Right Triangle - just like an arris rail that you'd use in fencing.

The only plastic sections we've been able to find on the market, however, have been of an equilateral section.

So what to do?

We realised that while you can't get triangular section with a right angle you can easily get L section - but how to fill in the 3rd side so it becomes a triangle?

Our answer is to cast copies by mounting the L section upside down and filling the gap at each end. to make the master.

Here are a the first prototypes I have cast.

Cut them out and turn them over and you'll have a triangular section with a right angle at the bottom.

Genius!

I'm sending these ones down to Himself to see how they fit on the track.

The question is whether they'll stand proud of the rails and foul the trains - as sometimes happens with our foot crossings - in which case I will have to make smaller versions.

Plaster Last

Plaster has now been applied onto the last board, showing the stretch of the line along by Cemetery Crossing and Himself has started sticking on the stone walls which are from the Ten Commandments range.

Supplies have run out (again) so the positions of the remaining sections of wall have been marked out in blue.

You can also see a culvert which has been built towards the bottom left of the picture.

The basics of the level crossings are in place but he has still to make up the cattle grids to go on either side of the cemetery road.

Once the plaster has fully cured it will be given a coat of mud brown emulsion all over and then the track can be ballasted.

Now thoughts are turning to the fiddle yard design.

The complicating factor here is that the tracks enter at different heights at each end - the Rhyd Ddu end is 6.5cm higher than the Aberglaslyn end - so Himself is going to consult with the fourth member of the team, the Structural Engineer, to get some ideas together.

This brainstorming session will probably happen in the top left hand corner of Wales and may well involve the consumption of ale.

A Few Centimetres To Go

We have almost completed the track laying on the layout.

Himself has turned his attention to the other end - the Porthmadog end - and the last base board to be tackled.

This is the one that was used as a temporary fiddle yard but is destined to be the section leading from the southern end of Goat Tunnel and across Cemetery Crossing as the railway heads for the Pass of Aberglaslyn.

He has cut and mounted the plywood track bed and started work on the crossings.

In the picture above you can see Cemetery crossing in the foreground with road and footpath leading off p the hill.

The entrance to the fiddle yard, with the scenic break on a diagonal, can be seen in the background after the unnamed foot crossing.

And this is the view from the over direction.

As you can see there is but a few centimetres of virgin track bed left on Bron Hebog now. What a tantalizing sight!

It also serves as a reminder how huge this layout is going to be by 009 standards.

Many of them seen on the circuit are no longer than the run from this point to the start of the tunnel around the corner out of shot.

That's not meant as a criticism or a put down because you can see some amazing modelling in small spaces, it's just an observation to put the size of this project into context.

Level Crossings

This is a busy section of track we're working on.

As well as crossing the river twice there are two occupational crossings of the same farm road to build.

This is the lower one, Cwm Cloch.

This was basically as far as the layout ran when we showed it at Super Power 2013 at Dinas. We had put down a basic covering of undergrowth but there were still details such as the crossing to be completed.

And once the trains have climbed around the big U bend, through the deep Cutting Mawr and passed over the river (again) they come to Bron Hebog crossing.

I like this next picture a lot because it really demonstrates how far the trains climb on their journey around the layout.

The shot is taken from 'behind' the layout. In fact the camera is sitting just at the entrance to the fiddle yard so this is not a view you're ever likely to enjoy at exhibitions.