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.

Minffordd Update: Diamonds Take Forever

I mentioned in a post last week that putting an authentic slate roof on the Minffordd weigh house was going to have to be done the hard way, and this is it.

My means of replicating the distinctive diamond pattern is to patiently cut and stick rows of very thin card which, with the aid of a scalpel blade, has been shaped into regular pointed slates.

To make this a little - just a little - easier, I have a photocopied template which gives me around 20 rows on an A4 sheet.

It stems from a project a number of years ago - another favour - to make a 7mm scale model of the 'Bobby Hut' replica which stood at the station throat at Porthmadog Harbour before the return of the WHR and the extension of the Cob.

This also had a diamond pattern slate roof, although being a much smaller building there weren't so many of them, and being a larger scale the rows weren't quite so fiddly to cut.

It was for this project that I drew up the template, and when I came to make the previous weigh house model (for Fred Howes' retirement) I could easily reduce it in scale on a photocopier.

It's taken around a week to get one side of the roof completed.  

I can manage about 4 or 5 rows a night before I begin getting cross-eyed or just plain bored with it!

Earlier today I took it over to Himself's place for a quick trial run on the layout to check it fits in the intended space.

(Yes, it might have been an idea to have tried this before I began doing all the really fiddly bits....)

The good news is that it slots in perfectly.

The not so good news - although we knew this all along - is that hardly anyone will notice all the pretty detailing on the front because most people watching the layout at shows will see it from this side.

Oh well, the important thing is that the operators get the best view, don't you agree?