A Sense Of Purpose

The structures which probably most draw the eye on our layout, and anyone looking at the real Minffordd Yard are the two very large slate sheds.

You can't miss them whether you are passing on an FR or Cambrian train, or even driving past on the road.

It wasn't until after the period in which our layout is set that they ever became railway property.

However, they were always crucial to the purpose of the exchange yard, built as an outpost of the Maenofferen slate mining company for exporting their products by rail.

In our period they were being used by the Davies Brothers slate merchants who still stacked their slates on the wharf opposite the Cambrian station platform, although nearly everything came in and out by road.

To add operational interest we shunt narrow gauge waggons on the long sidings which run in front and in between the sheds even though at this time the FR respected its tenant's privacy at that end of the yard. 

A vital part of setting the scene is the large stack of slates behind the shed.

To represent this I was fortunate to be gifted some spare 3D printed blocks which I was able to cast dozens of copies from to complete the effect.

The sheds were built on a styrene skeleton with brick-effect pillars also cast in resin from a single master.

Much as with the real sheds most of the structure is the roof.

With such an expanse of slate I thought it was vital it the slates were in three dimensions so I made use of the thick Wills sheets.

Two of them needed to be bonded together on each elevation, doing my best to disguise the join.

Some people do wonder why we don't have tracks leading into the sheds, but this is actually a modern feature - well, 50+ years old now - after the FR took ownership and raised the roofs to make use of them to store rolling stock over the winter months.

Stacked

Many years ago when we built up our rake of slate waggons I made loads for them the hard way - what's new?

I cut hundreds of pieces of slate-sized styrene and glued them in rows onto a length of thin strip and repeated the process dozens of times until I had a unit which filled neatly inside one of the Dundas wagons.

Over time - and we're talking decades - the plastic on the wagons has become brittle and Himself is renewing some of the fleet and is looking for more loads.

I was asked whether it might be possible to cast them this time, so I've brought one example home and am about to cover it in RTV and see what happens.

In theory it should be a good way to reproduce them, but my only concern is how well the deep, narrow valleys between each of the slates will be replicated?

Still Slating

It's not a fast process, but I am nearing the end of fixing the strips of card slates onto the roof of the old barn.

This side (which is south facing) is in a worse state than the first and has a whole section of slates slipping off en-masse on the right hand side.

Once these are finished I can fix them into position on the building and hand it over to Himself to paint at his leisure.

Slipped Slates

This last week I've been working on the roof of the old barn - the end that still has one, that is.

The challenge with this has been to make it look suitably distressed.

On all the houses I've been building for the layout I've been able to use embossed plastic sheets but here the only realistic solution is bespoke slating.

I use strips of very thin card - or perhaps, more accurately described as very thick paper - onto which I have run through a photocopier with repeated design of rows of slates.

I cut out a row and then slice with the blade on the markings between each slate, leaving them connected by a sliver along the top edge, and then I glue them, row upon row, onto a styrene sheet using PVA.

Doing it this way I can break the row at any point to create the look of a missing slate, or one that has slipped.

In case you were wondering why there is the triangular marking at the top it's because I first created the pattern when I was asked to make a model of Minffordd weigh house as a retirement gift for FR permanent way legend Fred Howes.