Restore Or Replace?

Aging stock brings with it a dilemma.

Some of our Dundas slate wagons are more than 25 years old and starting to get a little brittle.

This weakness is most apparent around the very small axleboxes which have a tendency to break off.

The wheelsets are also showing their vintage with the plastic wheel centres shrinking ever so slightly and allowing the tyres to moves, affecting the back-to-back measurements.

The question is whether to try and fix them up or replace with new.

Himself has discovered a pack of 3 tonners in a drawer and made them up just in case.

Parklife

I’ve been adding slats to the seat frames for the Gladstone Carriage I cast a few days ago.

These are the eight single seats which are arranged facing the end of the carriage in the two unglazed saloons.

Still to made are the long benches which are placed in front of the end windows.

I know the slats on the seats are much thicker than on the actual carriage, and there should be a lot more of them, but I’m not a ‘rivet counter’ and I think these will be effective enough.

Hidden Treasures

The recent transfer of two of my a favourite FR locomotives to a shed at the furthest reaches of the railway reminds me that we also have a collection of out of service engines which rarely see the light of day.

In our case they are hiding in plain sight on a shelf in Himself's study.

The most notable of this 'heritage collection' is our original model of Earl of Merioneth which was 'kit-bashed' around a white metal Langley Double Fairlie, and its diesel-locomotive chassis with its absurdly small wheels.

It was retired from service more than 20 years ago when it was replaced by our current machine which was adapted from a Backwoods Miniatures kit.

We also have two old Ladies in this retirement home for old engines, both of them from the Dundas white metal kits.

Linda was also relegated by the appearance of a Backwooods kit, but she still makes a fine model with her Ibertren chassis adapted with outside fly cranks and the conical chimney she acquired in the 1980s during an experiment with gas producer coal firing.

The end of service for Blanche was more abrupt after she failed in the middle of an exhibition with a detached fly crank and has never been properly repaired and now sits with her one of her false outside frames missing.

Feeling Inspired

The exhibition at the weekend gave my motivation the kick up the backside it needed, and I resolved to sort out the seats for the Gladstone carriage which I had consigned to the ‘too difficult’ box in my mind.

One of our fellow operators suggested that the 3D printing might be an option, and I gave it active consideration for a while, but eventually decided that the price of getting them produced would be more than I would be prepared to pay.

(And generally I’m not prepared to pay when it can be avoided...)

So I returned to my original plan which was to cast a resin frame and add the slats in styrene.

I bit the bullet and made a master, which I shall now make a mould from.

Breaking Cover

The varnish was barely dry on our new carriage 20 when it made its debut at Troon.

It made up a very nice little Col. Stephens set with 16 and 10, but what it really needs is a plain green big box on the front to finish it off.

There is one in the stock box which hardly ever sees the light of day. For some reason, which I can’t recall, we painted it all over cherry red - the vends and everything - which wasn’t even correct for our nominal layout year of 1988 (because only number 5 was in use then.)

I wonder if I can persuade Himself to repaint it?

It's Not About The Money

We've just returned from a very enjoyable weekend showing Dduallt at one of the local exhibitions, in Troon, organised by the Kyle MRC.

As you might imagine one of the big topics of conversation in the hall was the heartbreaking news spreading online about the vandalism attack on the show organised by the Market Deeping club at a local school.

All of us could imagine how we would feel in that same situation, and its been remarkable to see how far the story has spread on social media.

One of the most interesting aspects for me - and I'm going to be a little controversial here - is the way so many people have responded by donating money through a crowdfunding appeal.

Putting it very bluntly: it's not about the money.

It's about decades of passion and dedication which have gone into creating these models.

It's about time - and the one thing money can't buy is time.

It seems to me that more and more these days our first reponse to distressing events is to set up crowd funders - to reach into our pockets and donate money.

Why?

Do we do it to make ourselves feel better, I wonder?

Don't get me wrong, I have every possible sympathy for the people whose models were wrecked in that mindless, pointless act of stupidity, but I'm concerned that some people may be lulled into thinking that money is the way to fix it.

Perhaps my response is conditioned by being a scratch and kit builder?

If our fiddle yards were filled with ready-to-run stock then maybe I'd think differently, because I'd know that I could go out and buy replacements and the only limiting factor would be what I could afford.

But for us, and our layouts, it's different.

We built Dduallt over 25 years ago, and building all the stock has been a continual labour of love through that quarter of a century.

It is genuinely priceless.

Perhaps what's been nagging away at me this weekend is worry that all the people clicking the 'donate' button, and adding a few more pounds to the total - which stands at over £41k as a write - might not always be thinking deeply about what's been lost, and what it represents.

Hudson Healthcheck

Himself has been doing some last minute maintenance on the stock ahead of the exhibition in Troon which starts tomorrow (Saturday).

We’re still going through the process of converting all the couplings from Bemo to Greenwich ones, and the latest to be done is the replica Hudson ‘toast rack’ 39.

This was a model I scratch built one summer holiday when I was a student, so we’re talking mid-90s here, and I used one of the Dundas kits for 37/38 as a guide and source of bogies.

Eventually I think we might replace our semi-opens with new models in their current liveries.

Since I made my 39 the 009 Society produced a limited edition plastic kit for it.

If anyone knows of an unbuilt example that is potentially for sale i’d Be very keen to hear more about it.