Green Kink

Himself has been undertaking more underlaying and a lot of Bron Hebog is turning green.

Here's a shot of the kink immediately south of Goat Tunnel as the line heads towards Cemetery Crossing.



You can compare this picture with previous views of this spot in this post which explains how this section of the layout had to the re-engineered following a surveying error.

MOTW - Buffet Carriage 14

This is part one of a Lynton and Barnstaple double header for Model Of The Week - buffet car 14.



This carriage, which began life as Brake Third number 15 on the L and B in 1897, opened the way to a revolution in FR carriage design when it was rescued from a field at Snapper Halt and reborn at Boston Lodge as the railway's first genuine corridor buffet vehicle.

With the old route through the restrictive Moelwyn Tunnel abandoned the FR reset its loading gauge and roomy number 14 was the carriage which showed what was now possible.

Its dimensons and design themes were unashamedly copied in the creation of the new 'Barns' which first appeared in 1964 and indeed are still appearing today.

This is our second model of 14. It was scratch built in styrene and portrays the carriage in its present condition following a major rebuild in its centenary year which restored it to something more akin to its original L&B looks with the panelling and guard's duckets, although they are more slimline due to the less generous clearances in North Wales than was the case in Devon.

My first model of 14 was of the carriage as running in the early 90's with its simpler panel layout, louvre windows and fitted out inside with formica and metal framed ex-bus seats.

Today 14 looks and feels very much more elegant with a varnished wood interior and perhaps the most comfortable seats on the railway - and I include the first class carriages in that - I believe they are former tram seats.

With the wonderful local Purple Moose ale on sale from the counter at the Porthmadog end of the saloon it is to my mind the most pleasant and atmospheric way to travel on the FR in a 'modern' corridor train.

Dome From Home

Linda's bespoke 'roman helmet' dome has been delivered, hot off the lathe.

Here are some shots of the lady trying her new hat for size.



From above you can see how Chris has added the safety valve detail.



And for comparison here is Linda posed with older sister Blanche to show the difference in their profiles.



True FR anoraks, of course, would be able to reel off a list of sisterly differences. I can think of three obvious ones straight away.

Any advances on three?

A Little One To One

I've been back working in 4mm scale in the last few days. Gosh, it seems awfully small after building all these 7mm giants!

The carriage in question is 121, the new 'super barn' being built at Boston Lodge right now.



Here you can see the one of the bodysides at the first stage of the build.



The new 121 (there was a 1980's tin car that formerly bore than number) is supposedly identical to the new 103. I say supposedly because there's no such thing as identical where the FR carriage fleet is concerned.

I'm taking a bit of a risk in starting work on 121 before the real carriage has been finished and enters service, but I can see enough so far from pictures of the carriage under construction to be sure that the pattern of the windows is the same as 103, which is why I'm making these sections first.

There are some minor alterations to the design, according to my sources at Boston Lodge, who've told me the windows in the ends of the carriage are just a little bit taller than on 103.

If you've been reading this blog from the start you'll know that I had my fingers very badly burned with 103 when with the model 90% finished I discovered that the drawing of the carriage I had smuggled out of Boston Lodge for me was wrong! You can read all about it here

Hopefully 121 will be more straightforward.

The Roof Sticks

And so to the task of completing the roof on the big Pullman 'Bodysgallen'.

This carriage has a very shallow curve so I've taken a bit of a gamble by only putting in one support rib along the centre of the roof. (There are usually three)

Usually I shape the top of these by scrapping away the edges with the scalpel and then finishing off with emery paper. This time, though, I decided it would be quicker and easier - although more extravagant - by topping the rib with a length of half-round styrene strip.

In the picture below you can also see the piece of styrene for the roof skin has been prepared with a triangle cut from each end for the domes.



Here the skin has been bonded in place - or more like battered into submission...



And then the Milliput can be pressed into the ends and roughly smoothed to the right shape. It takes 24 hours to set properly but once it does it becomes rock hard and can be finessed with emery paper.



With the roof left to one side to set I turned my attention to the floor / chassis, fixing the bogie mounting points and making up the distinctive long boxes for auxiliary thingys.



And finally, for now, the corridor connections and the footsteps at the entrance doors were glued on.

MOTW - 87

I think it's appropriate that our first Model Of The Week for 2012 should be the WHR's flagship locomotive NGG16 number 87.

87 is one of four Beyer-Garratts currently on the WHR. Three of them have seen service so far. It was one of the first batch of NGG16's built by Cockerill in Belgium in 1936 and is the oldest in the fleet.

It was purchased from store in Exmoor following a large private donation which also covered the cost of an extensive restoration at Boston Lodge Works.

Our model is made from a Backwoods Miniatures kit which has been altered to better represent the earlier design of this class. One of the more obvious changes is the removal of the narrow windows on the cab sides.

This loco spent its first season on the WHR in 2009 in this light grey livery and although it has since been repainted into a midnight blue colour scheme we thought the grey was so distinctive and unusual that we should show our model of 87 in this guise.

In years to come, as memories of its short-lived livery fade, I think it'll become a real head-turner and conversation point on Bron Hebog at exhibitions.

For a number of years now our Garratts (we have three in the fleet at the moment if you include K1) have been rostered on implausible - if not downright impossible - running in turns on Dduallt.

We hope you enjoy these snaps of the big girl taking a gander around the spiral.

The Best Bit

After weeks of hard work, finally I've got to the bit of carriage making I enjoy most - assembling the kit of parts I've created into a bodyshell.



On these WHR carriages the process starts by joining the recessed door sub-assemblies to the main section of bodyside...



And then the ends can be bonded on....



At last all the bits connect up into a box...



This is where the carriage usually starts to fight back, and 'Bodysgallen' was no exception from the rule.

The next stage is to make a removable floor which sits a little bit up inside the body. In a plain rectangular carriage this is usually quite simple, but on these WHR vehicles you need to cut away sections at the ends for the inset doors.

I find its quite tricky to get these right first time, especially when hacking away at large sheet of 60" styrene and you're making cuts of up to a foot long. I find myself trimming ever more fine slithers of styrene off the piece in an effort to get it fitting snugly, only to discover later on that it's now a little too small and then fiddling about grafting on equally thin strips to build it back up again.

Anyway, I got there in the end, and now there's the base of the roof made up too.



The next stage is to add the support ribs and fix a styrene roof skin in place - which is easier said than done - and mix up some Milliput to form the domes at each end.