Non-Corridor Corridor

I’ve always been amused by the way the NWNGR Ashbury carriages were referred to as ‘corridor’ coaches, because by modern terminology they so clearly are not!

However, I suppose that back in the day being able to move around an open saloon, changing seat on the move if one so wished, was a noteworthy development on the narrow gauge where most other stock was made up of divided compartments.

These days, of course, we take the word corridor to mean a door in the end, so you can move from carriage to carriage, and the adaptation of FR 11 and 12 to run as a buffet/obs would have been transformative.

Anyway, as you can see, the interior for the last of our WHHR carriages (for now) is made and with a fair wind behind him maybe Himself will get the full set ready to run in Greenock next month?

Sprouting

A few more trees have appeared on the layout, around the biggest feature which is the 180 degree bend leading into Cutting Mawr.

These are but a fraction of what is there in the real location, which is getting rather bushy, but the trains look so good making their way around the curve that we don't want to hide them from view behind a forest of foliage.

Sanding

A few more bits have been added to the bunkers of 130 as more clues filter out of Boston Lodge and Dinas as to how it will definitely look.

I’m told this has been 3 days work.

Himself describes these as the 'fiddly bits' and they include the sand pots, mounted on the front of the tanks, which have recently been painted in the lovely deep plum colour for the real loco.

Among the most tricky parts are the lifting eyes which have to be fashioned from brass and - painfully - soldered in place.

The ‘greedy rails’ have been added to the top of the coal bunker.

The big, rectangular water filler doors have been knocked up in styrene for the front unit as well.

At the back end the vacuum pipe and the lubricator have been put in position, but this isn't being done on the front as no photographic evidence has come to light yet....

Shafted!

A small piece of progress to report on James Spooner.

Himself has fitted the drive shafts which connect the motor - hidden in the firebox - with the power bogies.

They don’t have pick ups, or an electrical connection to the motor yet, but it has operated in a test with an umbilical link to a power source.

These solid shafts are a development of the Backwoods kit which originally used long, thin springs to take the drive, but the extra flexibility was unnecessary, and from the Single Fairlie kit onwards this is what was adopted.

Tree Surgery

Himself is making up a few more trees from kits he discovered lying around.

Our trees are not the most sophisticated.

We use the Woodland Scenics kits which come as flat, soft plastic sprues which you twist to shape and glue clump foliage onto.

We’ve always believed the effect of a great number of these on the layout goes a long way to making up for what they lack as individual models.

Mr Forgetful

I’ve had the interior for the WHHR buffet car returned as faulty goods.

It appears I made a very basic mistake,  with the result that it doesn’t fit in with the roof soldered in place.

What I forgot to allow for is the brackets at each end which hold the captive nut that fixes the chassis in place.

You see, while I was making it I was only ever fitting it in from above.

A bit of a schoolboy error, really.

It should be easily fixed by chopping it into three parts.

Little And Large

It’s not immediately apparent that these started out as basically the same carriage.

Himself has soldered together the body for the original spec NWNGR Ashbury corridor and now it’s over to me to make an interior for it.

The buffet car in the foreground would have looked the same before it was cut down the the FR with the intention of through running.

It’s remarkable what difference the extra few inches in height make, but I think the biggest visual differentiator is the bars over the opening windows which alter its appearance.

Also, you can’t help being struck by how austere (and economical) these carriages look compared to the high water mark of the FR ‘bowsiders’ a few years before.