That Swing Thing

It's time to put together the second prototype DZ wagon to see if the changes I've made to the position of the 'wee dangly bits' have worked.

The problem, you will recall, was two-fold. Not only were they in slightly the wrong position, they also stopped the bogies from swinging as far as I felt they needed to.

That's not necessarily a problem on Bron Hebog - the layout is so large by 009 standards that we have very easy curves - but as I am intending to sell the castings as a basic kit I need to take into account that some buyers may have much sharper bends on their layouts and the wagons need be able to cope with those.

These castings are not very challenging to put together, as you can see here.

The first stage is to attach the two sides to the floor / chassis unit which has been designed so the bottom of the sides are fixed flush with the bottom of the chassis frame.

I use rapid set epoxy resin, rather than superglue, to give myself plenty of adjusting time.

And when those are solid the end pieces can be glued on in a similar fashion.

See, I told you it was simple!

The bogies are designed to pivot on a 10BA bolt put through a hole in the floor and retained by a nut. (Apologies if this is all a bid bleedin' obvious.)

The bogies you see here are a pair of Worsley Works etches we had lying around spare, with a brass coupling shaft added on and fitted with 2mm 'top hat' brass bushes which I have filed down aggressively on the outside to maximise the angle the bogies can swing.

I think that should be quite sufficient for a wagon which is only 10cm long. Surely to goodness no one has curves tighter than that, do they?

Lending Library

There's not been a lot of modelling done this past week, but plenty of reading.

Himself has been up here to convalesce from the exertions of helping with the annual Kids Training Week on the FR. (According to the teenagers he was, apparently, 'cool', which he seems rather pleased about.)

He also brought with him some new books he bought in the railway's shop at Portmadog which I've been having a good look at.

One which may be of particular interest to blog readers is the latest offering from Middleton Press in their Great Railway Eras series, this time with all colour snaps of the FR between 1955 and 1982.

Some may question the appropriateness of the phrase 'Great Railway Eras' in this case because this period  - or at least the second half of it - is widely viewed as the FR's Ugly Railway Era.

This was the time when Merddin Emrys was given a radical rebuild with a new boiler and emerged looking almost anorexic. The new Earl of Merioneth, on the other hand, gorged on steel plate and gave a passable impression of two army tanks parked back to back.

Historic vintage carriages were stripped of panelling and covered in a monotonous red livery, while redundant road tankers doubled as water towers and old oil drums became platform rubbish bins.

But I loved it! This is the FR of my childhood. There's no denying the railway looks better, is more varied and makes so much more of its unique heritage these days, but nostalgia is a powerful emotion and we all have a soft spot for things we remember from our younger days.

If you're an FR anorak then I'm sure you will quickly spot some of the caption howlers in the book. There are 3 very obvious ones I've spotted so far: A shot of Prince on the mineral line at Minffordd which the book says is 1980 but which is so obviously the late 1960's because of the altered frames beneath the saddle tank. There is Merddin on Cei Mawr with a train of vintage stock in green and ivory livery. 1971 it says. I don't think so! Ditto a snap of Linda and Blanche at Harbour with carriages in the same colour scheme which the author also tries to tell us is 1971.

I point this out not because I want to look like an FR smart-arse but because for modellers these are important details. FR locos and carriages have been altered in subtle ways so frequently over the years that you have to look at a lot of pictures when doing your research and caption errors like this can be confusing and misleading.

Some of the pictures are also a little fuzzy which is perhaps a consequence of the original camerawork rather than the reproduction in the book.

Despite these niggles, however, I really enjoyed the book and would say it's an essential element of an FR enthusiasts library.

Left A Bit, Right A Bit

I've been working on what you might call the 'production' version of the DZ wagon sides.

Putting together the prototype wagon revealed very few issues other than the positioning of the 'wee dangly bits' that hang from the frame and stop the doors swinging down far when they are lowered.

It turns out that these DZ's, in common with most narrow gauge rolling stock I've ever tried to model, are not nice and symmetrical.

As you may recall from previous posts I began the DZ project by making one of the three sets of doors which make up each side and then casting copies of that which I joined together to make one complete wagon side.

The original cast came complete with dangly bits which meant that when three of them were put together they were spaced identically, and evenly, on each third of the wagon.

The catch is that the real wagons, it turns out, are not so straightforward. Himself examined a couple of them at Dinas and noticed that the 2nd and 5th WDB (wee dangly bit) are positioned differently relative to the rest of the door unit.

You can see in this picture below of one of the original wagon sides (bottom) and one of the new ones (top)how the positions differ.

Not only that but on the model they were slightly restricting the bogie swing in their original positions.

Fortunately it's been relatively simple to correct the error. I went back to the master and simply chopped the offending DB's off, and repositioned them. Resin parts stick excellently with superglue and as the master is stuck onto a backing sheet of styrene they're not about to get knocked off.

All that was left was to carve off the old hinge detail and replace with new styrene strip and then produce a new silicone mould and get casting again.

MOTW - NG-Y Ballast Wagon

A treat for South African NG fans this week, our featured model is one of our pair of the WHR's ex-SAR ballast wagons.

In my opinion these wagons are a 'must have' for any model of the modern WHR because they were so essential to the effort to rebuild the line from Caernarfon to Porthmadog.

Ours are scratch built from styrene and it took a while to get around to making them because I didn't have access to any drawings for the NG Y design. In the end I took a tape measure to one of them myself along with a copious amount of pictures taken from every angle.

A big help in getting them to look right is the availability of U section styrene produced in a wide range of sizes by Evergreen which was used for the straps along the side of the hoppers, the Z struts at each end and the inner parts of the main frames.

Another important finishing touch is the distinctive wheels used for the hand brakes and the controls for the ballast chutes which I had custom etched.

Himself made use of his airbrush for the weathering effects to make them look suitably used.

We've perhaps overdone it a little with the load - some viewers at exhibitions have commented that they would be over the weight limit - but I have to say I have seen pictures of them looking pretty full when in use on construction trains.

I've also scratch built a handful of these wagons for other modellers in both 4mm and 7mm scale. With the development of the resin DZ's progressing well I would be interested in assessing whether there would be any demand for me working on a kit for these NG Y monsters. If you would be, please do let me know.

Tube Train

It's mostly wee bits and pieces which are left on the KMX tamper now, except for the big matter of the roof which I'm going to sub-contract out to Himself.

Just because they're smaller doesn't necessarily mean they're quick though.

These air tanks which live under the cab floor took an hour to make and fit.

I make them using a length of styrene tube. It then has a square piece of sheet glued onto either end. Once the bond is solid it is trimmed as much as possible with the scalpel and then finished with a file and emery paper, rounding off the shoulders at each end.

Finally at each end I curled a very thin strip of styrene around it - clamping the ends together with the tip of the tweezers - and running glue all around it. Sometimes the strip will snap when it's being bent around or when the glue hits it, but you always get there in the end with a bit of perseverance.

I did the same with some smaller diameter, single ended ones, beneath the other cab.

(Single ended only because you can't see the other end on the model, that is)

Another job to be ticked off was converting the trailing bogie from the Kato shorty chassis so that it can be secured with a 10BA bolt.

Yes, you've guessed it, another use found for Evergreen tubing. It's handy stuff to have in stock.

The Squeezy Bits

The trickiest bit of making the KMX tamper is the hydraulic gubbins in the middle.

While I am able to cheat by using resin castings for the tamper head, the lifting and lining bits from the Britannia Pacific kits don't look anything like the appendages hanging from the WHR's heavily rebuilt machine. So I have to make them myself.

This is rather complicated - although satisfying - process.

Various different thicknesses of Evergreen styrene rod are employed to make the hydraulic arms and to bodge up something to represent the horizontal guide wheels / grabbing things at the bottom.

This involves slicing such fine discs of plastic tube that would impress a prize winning salami maker!

There's also a frame that they're attached to which has to be fabricated and finally something to represent the shaft beneath. This should run all the way to a point near the bogie beneath the engine compartment, but I can't do that on the model because the Kato chassis has to be inserted / removed from beneath.

I'm starting to feel that I've really broken the back of this project now, but there's still a tremendous amount of fine detailing to be added all around the body, not to mention a lot of cosmetic surgery on the bogies.

MOTW - 102

This vehicle marked the start of a new wave in Observation Carriage design and furnishing standards on the FR.

Built in 2005 the most obvious change was the return to a single window pillar at the observation end, with a pair of large, square windows, as opposed to the triple arrangement that had become so familiar over the previous 40 years.

Passengers also would have noticed the generously upholstered freestanding chairs in this compartment in contrast to the fixed, swivelling seats in the first generation of Barns.

For carriage-spotters like me other details stood out like the wooden frame half droplights (which first appeared on the rebuilt 106) which were a new challenge to model, and the return to squared corners in the windows rather than the rounded rubber beading which the older carriages had acquired over the years.

102 also heralded a change in the look of our carriage fleet.  It was around this time that Boston Lodge began outshopping carriages with bright, washing-power white roofs.  They don't stay looking like this for long, of course, especially not since the FR began to reintroduce coal firing.

We tend to finish our models in something approaching ex-works condition, so our 102 still has a very pale roof.

The picture here, which was taken during the Railex exhibition back in May, also shows 102 sporting the rather fabulous new gold transfers which we had commissioned from Precision Decals.  102 was also the first observation carr. to wear the old-style FR monogram with the branding Ffestiniog First underneath.

The large crest to the left, on the guards compartment, is also a Precision Decals product.