MOTW - 111

Push-pull driving trailer carriage 111 is celebrating its 21st anniversary in 2011. This model isn't much younger, dating from the mid-90's.



Although it was built for use with an off-peak push-push set 111 has spent most of its time in service functioning as one of the first class observation carrs at the Porthmadog end of the train sets, albeit very much the third choice these days.

111 was the last in the line of the 1970's design of 'tin carrs' which were built on former Isle of Man Railway underframes and used a lot of off-the-shelf components from the bus industry including seats and the beclawat sliding light windows.

As a child of the '70's I've always had a soft spot for these carriages. Along with the new Earl of Merioneth - unkindly dubbed 'The Incredible Hulk' or simply 'The Square' - they impressed me with their modernity during my visits to the FR as a kid.

Our model of 111 shows the carriage in its original green and ivory livery and runs with the other 5 carriages that made up the INCa train set and is most often paired with the push-pull fitted diesel locos 'Conway Castle' or 'Criccieth Castle'.

We run it in proper push mode too, with the loco at the Blaenau end of the train propelling the six carriages down the spiral and through two sets of points in the Dduallt station loop.

It does so time after time with barely ever a derailment and I happen to think that's no mean achievement in OO9.

Back To The Drawing Board

I'm about to make a start on a follow up commission for the other WHR Pullman carriage 'Bodysgallen' now that I've completed 99% percent of the construction work on 'Glaslyn'

This was built by Winson Engineering, like the other five original carriages, but it was a metre longer and arrived a year later.

I've never had a works drawing for this vehicle and so I made my 4mm scale model from measurements of the carriage I took myself in the shed at Dinas. So as you can see I am having to produce my own scaled up design for a 7mm model.



The drawing board, incidentally, is one of the best purchases I've ever made as a aid to scratch building. Yes, I know there are free computer programmes like SketchUp out there but I'm quite happy back here in the 20th century thank you very much.

Trial Run

If you'll forgive the diversion I wanted to share with you a picture of another fine NG layout this time.

It's not entirely irrelevant because it's a snap of the 7mm observation carr I recently built getting a trial run at its new home.



The layout is Rhyd by David John and from the pictures I've seen it looks a real beauty.

David will be showing this layout at the exhibition in Perth - that's Perth, Scotland, in case any of my Australian readers get confused - in June.

MOTW - Service Carr 124

This Model of the Week is bang up to date and represents the very latest in passenger provision on the FR: the Service Carriage.



This vehicle takes the railway back to the Victorian era of the curly roof luggage vans (and their non-curly cousins) as a bogie vehicle in front-line service which doesn't carry any passengers - apart from the one's sitting down to use the loo, of course.

The concept is a carriage which combines all the functions that would normally be dotted about the train in other vehicles such as the guard's compartment, a toilet and the kitchen / buffet area.

124 goes a stage further because it also holds a generator to provide the electrical power for the carriage's equipment.

124 is not an entirely new carriage. The bodyshell - which is rather ugly, if we're being honest about it - is brand spanking new but it has been plonked on a third hand underframe which was once upon a time a carriage on the Isle of Man Railway, then ran around as 1981-built 'tin carr' 121, before that was scrapped and re-born as 124.

It most respects this model of 124 was a fairly standard 'Barn' build with the exception of the glazing.

To give the crew some privacy some of the windows on the real carriage are covered in a reflective film, the kind that allows you to see out from inside but which looks like a mirror on the outside.

How, we wondered, were we going to recreate this in model form? The answer, in fact, was to do exactly the same as on the prototype. We were kindly given an off cut of the self-adhesive film used on the windows of 124 which was applied to the back of the styrene glazing, and it works a treat!

The Big One

My first 7mm scale carriage, a model of FR Observation Carr 100, is finally finished and has been submitted to the tender mercies of the Royal Mail to be delivered to its new home in the Highlands of Scotland.

Himself has blown a coat of matt varnish over it with his airbrush and the glazing has been slipped into place.

And that's about all there is to say, other than that building this model has been a real eye-opener for me and if I was starting modelling the FR again from scratch again I think I would definitely go up a size to 7mm.

Do you like it?

Too Hot To Handrail

Among the sundry details to be completed on 'Glaslyn' are the handrails on either side of the doors at the rear of the carriage.

These are quite tricky things to make because they cannot be done by simply bending one piece of wire into shape. The struts that fix the vertical hand rail are positioned a little way in from the ends.

The only way to replicate this is to cast or etch a single piece or to fabricate it. I have done the latter.

Now, those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will know that me and soldering irons have only recently become acquainted, and making bits like these provides many exciting opportunities to suffer third degree burns.

There is also plenty of scope to muck them up, too. It's vital to make sure that they're all identical and that the struts are all soldered on in the same spots.

Himself had made some in 4mm when completing some of the latest WHR carriages and informed me that they were complete swines to make!

All these considerations led me to one conclusion - I needed a jig.

My solution was to start off by drilling parallel holes into a piece of thin tongue and groove to hold the struts...

Not only would this guarantee I could make each of the handrails identical it would also do most of the holding for me, which is just as well because I definitely don't have asbestos fingers!

Here you can see the wire being offered up to complete the handrail...



A dollop of solder on each of the joints and the job's a good'un. Here are all four now made up...



Here's how they look on the model during a trial fitting..

Arc de Triomphe

As I mentioned a few days ago, our Artistic Director has indeed been busy. As well as twisting up the first of the trees for the layout he has painted the 'Bridge To Nowhere'

I think the finished result looks absolutely fantastic, a triumph in fact, but I couldn't really tell you much about how it was done other than the self-evident fact than the Artistic Director is very talented.

So I was pleased when he offered to tap out a few observations on how he did it:

Himself has excelled again in his recreation of 'The Bridge to Nowhere', that iconic entrance arch to Beddgelert. The archeology of the early railway history in this area forms an important component of our layout and this particular structure will be a key feature at this end of our model.

Studying this bridge as we have for many years, it reveals a complex mix of materials including slate, limestone and a warm, almost orange, sandstone. The southern face gets the sun and is consequently paler but the north facing stonework is another story, dark and damp! After more than 80 years minerals leaking through the structure have created wonderful staining and crusts more often associated with underground chambers and caves.

Consequently the wonderful model, faced with appropriate embossed plastic, deserved the very best paint job if all that character was to be captured.

I worked from over 30 images of the bridge, each capturing a different aspect, colour or stain, and not forgetting a piece of presumably Welsh graffiti under the arch!


Only acrylic paints can produce the blend of colours, the streaky and crusty mineral deposits and the subtle colour transitions, sometimes within an individual stone. As with our stock weathering I rely largely on matt white, leather and for built structures like this, a dark grey rather than black. Acrylics may dry fast but nothing beats them when you are working up a different hue on each individual stone. A real challenge but hopefully we have delivered!