Younger Brother

I'm sure you're probably heartily sick of pictures of proudly purchased Bachmann Double Fairlies by now, but if you've come to this post by clicking on our social media I suppose you must still have a smidgen of interest left to want to know what I'm saying about them.

The first of our pair has arrived direct from Bachmann HQ, the model of Livingston Thompson in peak-Spooner condition, and looking just like it does today in the NRM at York.

Himself posed it next to our eldest Backwoods Miniatures Fairlie, which was also designed as LT but doctored as best we could to represent Merddin Emrys as it emerged from its re-Spoonering overhaul in 1988.

Of course, the Backwoods model is not to scale. 

The real loco is much longer and taller now, but it's pleasing to see that our one still sits a little higher than the Bachmann version, which at least gives some of the effect of what the brothers looked like when Merddin dragged LT to Tan y Bwlch for the official handover ceremony to the NRM.

Our LT has already had a short light engine test run on Bron Hebog.

However, I'm looking forward to putting this pair up against each other in a 'King of the Hill' challenge.

We already know our brass Backwoods Fairlies can handle a longer FR rake than the real locos do around the  S-bend out of Beddgelert.

The big question is whether the relatively featherweight RTR version will be able to haul an authentic number of carriages up the grade?

Watch this space...

Replicas Running

Now the varnish has set, and the bogies been fixed on,  Himself has sent me a couple of pictures of our new replicas - Ashbury 21 and Hudson toast rack 39 - on a test run on the layout.

21 is from a Worsley brass body kit and 39 was scratch built with most of the body cast in resin by myself,

This gives us a very respectable length of a 'Garraway' vintage set strengthens our 'Col Stephens' options as well, although we are a few green bug boxes short in that department.

They look very good posed in the platform at Beddgelert station on Bron Hebog.

It shouldn't be too much longer before our Bachmann Double Fairlies arrive and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the green Earl of Merioneth looks like hauling some of our green and ivory and all-over red stock.

Totally out of period for us, of course, but it's nearly Christmas so we're allowed, aren't we?

Review Of The Year - Part 4

October

So to the final post of the year.

Dduallt was making yet another comeback, appearing at our home club's exhibition over two days in Greenock, and there will be more outings in 2019.

Himself hadn't wasted any time in getting started on the first of the new Garratt kits, which we decided would be 143.

He was making very rapid progress on the power units - here's the front one.

We were also taking apart our eldest Backwoods Fairlie, Merddin Emrys, to try and get to the bottom of its very poor performance.

It turned out that what it needed was new brushes for its Mashima motor.

Fortunately these could be fitted by twisting the motor round in the mounting, because it's impossible to remove it without deconstructing a lot of the locomotive.

November

I was making more progress on superbarn 120 which was having its underframe detail added by this stage.

Himself was adding the valve gear to the first of the Garratt bogies, which was being test run.

I had taken on the job of making up some wagon kits as repeat business for a customer.

December

Progress on 143 had got the point where both power units had their vale gear fitted and much of the detail was in place on the boiler unit as well.

As I write it has yet to be joined together or pick-ups fitted, so there's be no test running so far.

The ballast wagons and B wagons were completed and delivered to the customer ready in time for Christmas, even though there was no deadline on the contract.

Thanks to you for reading the blog in 2018 and all our best wishes for 2019.

Mending Merddin

It looks like we've finally got to the bottom of what was the matter with Merddin Emrys.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about how Himself was going to remove and refit the power bogies and the drive shafts to see if that was the explanation for its increasingly arthritic performance.

Initial performance on Dduallt at the exhibition last weekend was promising, with it having a fair turn of speed again, but as the show wore on it slowed down to a crawl again.

Himself decided that he could no longer avoid opening it up to take a look at the motor.

This is not a simple operation on a Backwoods Fairlie.

As you can see from the picture above he had to remove the boiler / smokebox castings, the cab roof and the firebox wrapper to get at it.

He tells me that what he found under there was a motor caked in filth.

By twisting the motor around in its mount he could get to the brush holders, and having removed them, discovered there was barely anything left of them!

Fortunately there was just enough meat on them that the commutator had not suffered any damage.

Our Merddin must be at least 15 years now, and has run many thousands of scale miles on Dduallt and Bron Hebog, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

He recovered some spare brushes from a disused motor and has fitted those and reports that it appears to have revived the locomotive, although it has yet to have a proper run on a test track because both the layouts are still packed away.

It says a lot for the regard in which Backwoods designer, Pete, held Mashima-san, that he was prepared to trap the motor in the firebox cradle on these engines so as to make it virtually impossible to remove them again.

He always said the only maintenance you'd ever have to do was possibly replace the brushes - let's hope he was right.

Himself is making noises about getting in a stock of spare brushes in case the Earl and DLG begin to show similar symptoms.

The Old Wizard

Part of the pre-exhibition testing process has been taking a look at Merddin Emrys to see why our oldest Fairlie has been getting a bit arthritic of late.

It had to be restricted to light duties in service on Bron Hebog at Dinas because in one direction is was reduced to a crawl at full power when running with a full rake of FR stock.

The difficulty with these Backwoods Fairlies is that the motor is not accessible for servicing - it is built into the body at an early stage of construction.

Himself's greatest fear is that it should fail completely or become burnt out.

One theory he had was that during the servicing he carried out on the bogies prior to the Dinas show, he might have got the drive shafts mixed up, or somehow not located properly.

He's reported back that he's had a fiddle with it and it seems to be performing a bit better.

Let's hope so.

Bogie Maintenance

More fettling of the stock has been going on this week over at Himself's place.

Our Merddin Emrys has had its bogies out so that the couplings can be changed from the chunky ones we used since it was built for the brass Greenwich design which is standard fit on all our carriages and wagons now.

There have also been a couple of bogie upgrades for the Barns.

Observation Car 100 and its one time running mate 124 have been treated to a pair of my own design of brass and resin modern FR bogies.

There are still a lot of our older carriages which need these so I will have to pull my finger out and cast a few more soon.

Doorbells And Sleigh Bells

And so to the pride of our FR fleet.

Our model of Merddin Emrys was the first of three Backwoods Double Fairlies built by Himself.

If it looks a little different it's because we finished ours to look like it was in 1988 when it first emerged from its Victorian rebuild with oil tanks and less bling about it than it has theses days.

What a beauty it is with those lovely big Fairlie wheels.

It wasn't Pete's first 009 kit but I regard it as the one which changed the rules on what was possible in this scale.

I hope that one day a manufacturer will take the obvious step of producing an RTR Fairlie, I'm certain it would be a big hit.

Review Of The Year - Part 3

July

The early part of the summer was taken up with work on the housing estate scene.

The conservatory which I had to build for the back of the latest house was one of the more challenging bits of the estate I've had to make.

Himself had been doing some work on the gardens of the houses which are already in place on Bron Hebog.

He'd also been busy creating the cemetery above the crossing on the far left hand side of the layout.

August

I decided to take a break from house building and put together the castings for Superbarn 118 which I'd cast the previous year but kept stored.

Himself was also giving some attention to the scenery on the top of Goat Tunnel, planting a copse of trees.

We also made a start on the last major scenic challenge on Bron Hebog which is lining the Cutting Mawr at the back of the layout with rock.

Instead of using slabs of real rock, which is what we did on Dduallt, we've decided to try casting copies of sections in resin which will be lighter and make the layout slightly less heavy.

September

By this time I'd started work on the last two houses to complete the Oberon Woods estate scene, both of them are detached (mostly) bungalows.

Himself had a few models which needed priming and decided it was time to give our Welsh Pony a coat.

The photo was taken in black and white - if it was in colour you would see that the primer is actually red oxide.

We did use grey primer as the base coat of the new Superbarn 118 which was ready to start being painted.

It's seen here on the shelf in front of some of the Superbarn fleet including the service car 125 and the observation car 150.

Tombstoning

I like it when you get to the stage of adding those little details which really complete the scene.

One of them is the cemetery from which Cemetery Crossing gets its name which is shortly beyond the exit from Goat Tunnel, or shortly before, depending on which direction you're traveling in.

Himself has made a nice job of a batch of grave stones which he has set out in the enclosed area above the line.

I did offer to make some masters and cast them in resin, thinking it might speed up the process, but it turns out he's made them all from scratch.

Here's a shot he posed featuring our newest carriage, 150, and a Triple Fairlie combo.

In The Beginning

While I was searching through Himself's collection of slides a few days ago, looking for pictures of Earl of Merioneth, I came across some images that I forgot we took of the early stages of construction of Dduallt.

At a guess I would date these pictures as 1992, so pretty much a quarter of a century ago.

As you can see, by this stage he had finished creating the trackbed, which was a very precise operation with the gradient on the spiral, and the track had be wired up and was being tested.

The rolling stock is worthy of note.

This was in the early days of my scratch building carriages in styrene so some of the trains are formed of very weighty white metal GEM kits and the brass Langley bowsiders.

It was also the era before the Backwoods Miniatures kits came along and so our Fairlies tottered along with tiny wheels from an adapted Bachmann diesel chassis sitting beneath a white metal Langley body kit.

The model of the Earl was a fine kit-bashing effort by Himself with the tanks formed from styrene and the smokeboxes and chimneys sourced from Parkside Dundas kits for Linda and Blanche.

The Earl is still with us - sitting on a shelf in Himself's study - but Merddin was donated as a gift to an FR luminary. I think of it now and then and hope it is being well cared for.