(no title)

Building E147…progress continues….

This wasn’t what was originally planned as an entry today. Instead I was going to be doing the follow up post to the visit to Wales, and location spotting for the Cwm Prysor extension. I’ll do an entry on that later in the week.

In the meantime, I recently visited Mr Tony Wright for some more tuition, this time on making the under frame for my Comet Kit, E147 Brake Composite. The task in hand wasn’t exactly difficult, but I felt better having someone keep an eye on me, and help where it was needed. Tony formed one side of the sole bars, and I did the other. Tony made up the bogies to save time but we did discover the supports were not long enough and therefore the bogie was interfering with the sole bars. Tony made up some makeshift padding from old plastic bogies, which solved the problem.

Tony marked out the first couple of holes for the ventilators and I did the rest. Below is how she looked at the end of the day.

©Tony Wright

Since then, I’ve added the buffer beam, buffers and masokit screw links. I’ll be adding the ventilators shortly before adding the under frame detail and interior.

It’s very rewarding to have a Collett Brake Composite for the layout, as they made up most of the passenger trains on the Bala-Blaenau Branch. It’s also rather nice that one coach, makes one train! 😉

Playing trains in Wonderful Wales

I have just spent a lovely few days in Wales, as a mini Birthday Holiday. The plan was to spend some time doing some location searching regarding the Blaenau Branch, but most importantly to visit and operate Geoff Taylor’s layout, Barmouth Junction.

Weather was awful on the journey over on Wednesday, with thick flog surrounding Cwm Prysor and Trawsfynydd, so I headed south towards my accommodation and a visit to Alan Buttler’s ‘Modelu’ workshop. It was truly fascinating seeing how the 3D printing process works. Alan also offered me a non stop tour of what remains of the Mid Wales Branch and Moat Lane Junction…with a grand finale being the view of the Clywedog Reservoir, the building of which was the last duty the Mid Wales line performed before closure.

Thursday came, and I awoke early to meet my friend Simon, as we headed off to operate Geoff Taylor’s ‘Barmouth Junction’. Before we move onto the layout, I have to say what excellent hosts Geoff and Sharon were, looking after us from arrival until departure (hope we didn’t eat you out of house and home!)

The layout really is something else, ingeniously designed with simply beautiful modelling. The start is ‘Dolgellau Sidings’ which I operated under Alan’s careful eye (as well as Barmouth Fiddleyard). This area is still being worked on by Geoff but it’s not hard to be able to tell what part of the country you are supposed to be viewing.

4585 is seen shunting in Dolgellau Sidings. © Alan Buttler

From here we move onto Penmaenpool Station itself. I have visited the real location many times, most recently last month with my Father. Looking at the model, and you feel like you are there….60 years ago.

A Collett Goods gets the right away with a train bound for Bala and Ruabon. © Alan Buttler

My Croes Newydd 7414 sits on Penmaenpool Shed, awaiting a return working to Bala.

Another of my locos, 4645 works a local Pickup Goods along the shore of the Mawddach Estuary © Alan Buttler

Finally we arrive at Barmouth Junction itself, where the Llangollen line meets the Cambrian Coast line. There is so much for the eye to take in, with the estuary in view behind the station.

An interesting move in the operation sequence, was seeing locos head off scene with a train to Barmouth, before seeing the loco return a few minutes later to turn on the triangle (which can be seen in the photo above).

Dukedog number 9000 is seen at Barmouth Junction while being turned on the triangle. ©Alan Buttler

It was a truly enjoyable day, and if I had any doubts about moving to DCC, they had gone by the time I had operated my first train. The lenz LH90 controller was comfortable to hold and would be simple to use at a show with Cwm Prysor.

Friday’s journey home took me back through the heart of Snowdonia. With the weather not as foggy, I stopped just East of Trawsfynydd to do some location spotting. I shall post more on this tomorrow, but it involves the idea of a ‘Modular Layout’ which in essence, will allow extended boards to Cwm Prysor.

🙂

Building my first etched coach, Comet Models E147

Work is going well with my first etched coach kit, ex GWR ‘E147’.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a coach that I believe worked on the Bala-Blaenau Branch but it a variety of Non Corridor Brake Composite. The two most common coaches used on the line are not produced in model form, those being the Collett E157 and Hawksworth E167. E147 is quite similar to the E157 plus they did work in Wales, a touch further south (have a look at Mr Geoff Forster’s beautiful Llangunllo layout to see an E147 in it’s natural environment.)

It is now ready to have the roof glued in place before building up the under frame. I did have a touch of help from Tony Wright on assembling the actual body of the coach, however all the soldering work on the sides was done by yours truly.

Regarding the E157 and E167 that I will be needing. I have commissioned Worsley Works to produce etched sides and ends. In the meantime, this gives me my first go at building an etched coach, to a diagram very similar, which may have worked the line.

Passenger stock underway

The first of my passenger stock is ready for Cwm Prysor.

It’s the old Mainline Brake Composite Sunshine Coach, latest reissue from Bachmann. I have a photo from 1951, of one on a mixed goods between Maentwrog Road and Llan Ffestiniog. All I have done is modify the bogies, add screw links and weather.

I had bought some South East Finecast Flush Glazing but on close inspection I wasn’t too impressed, plus getting into the coach looked a challenge in itself. I therefore have decided to leave the glazing as it stands.

Below is an example of the Saturday only mixed goods that would run. I’ve rostered two of which into the Cwm Prysor operating sequence.

I’m currently working on my first etched coat kit, a Comet E147 Brake Composite. I had done most of the door furniture, while Tony Wright gave me a hand with the the assembly of the body. I intend to crack on with this over the coming weekends.

Taking the plunge……

Yep, I’ve taken the plunge…..into DCC.

After conversations with Geoff Taylor and Steve Fay, I realised that DCC was the way I wanted to go. I had dabbled in DCC in the past with Leaman Road. The issues I had found back then, were more down to the fact the layout was kept in a dusty environment which effected running. I had sold the NCE system, so decided to go for something different. Geoff is an advocate of Lenz and after some research, it was hard to find anything negative about the German company.

The hand controller I really liked was the LH 90 with rotary knob, rather than pressure pad. Sadly it seems to have recently become discontinued with not many places having it stock….however an enquiry to Coastal DCC found they had two left in stock…… I bit the bullet.

I can’t fault Coastal DCC in the slightest, excellent communication and next day delivery.

Thankfully I still have the majority of my TCS decoders so there shall not be any expenditure there. Geoff has kindly offered to programme my Pannier’s when I visit his stunning layout ‘Barmouth Junction’ at the end of the month.

Hopefully I should have my baseboards in the coming month…..Cwm Prysor is almost ready to start work on. 🙂

Return to Little Bytham with Tony Wright

Last weekend, I had an enjoyable time with my friend Simon Roberts, filming Tony’s Little Bytham layout. We had done a similar video last year, but this time we decided to pull out all the stops and try and make it a bit professional….well a little perhaps.

I hope you enjoy it.

Blast form the Past

Something from my previous modelling life, an ex LNER Gresley Rebuild, B16/2.

This was a commission, which has had a number of tweaks and has been lined out by Tony Wright followed by weathering by yours truly. The original intention was to sell it, however since weathering it, I’ve had second thoughts.

61437 in the late 1950s was a 50D (Starbeck), somewhat ironic when I work in Harrogate!

I think it’s best I keep hold of it, you never know when you might need a B16!

Toad in the Hole

I’ve finally got around to working on that very Great Western of all things, a Toad Brake Van. This isn’t anything fancy, it’s just a simple repaint with minimal detailing. Previous models I have found have been a pain to get into and due to excess glue, I have snapped stanchions off the body, so with this example I haven’t altered the bulk head position. I also haven’t removed the moulded handrails. I did try on a spare body, but…..to be frank, gave up.

The finished result…..I’m happy with it. The main issue for me, was the colour. As regular readers will know, I really do not like Bachmann’s unfitted grey, so the model has been sprayed with Revell 76. I replaced the RCH buffers with GWR (Lanarkshire Models), so that the model resembles something a bit closer to an AA15.

I have fitted Laser glaze at the outer end windows. Annoyingly, when I came to fix the inner windows under the verandah with Klear, both fell through and have stuck inside. I’ll pick some more glazing up at Expo EM North…..or I might just leave it as it is.

I have numbered this Toad as W68669, which is actually preserved at the Llangollen Railway. Thanks to Nicholas Davies for his helpful research, we know W68669 was actually a Bala allocated Toad. The Bachmann model was originally branded Stourbridge which I removed, but retained the rest of the branding. BALA, was made up of Heavy Franklin font transfers from Fox. She was finished off with instanter couplings and weathering.

Next up is an early build BR 12T Van (Bachmann). I have added instanter couplings, tie bars, and upright vac pipes (as fitted to the early batch of BR Vans). I paid special attention on the corrugated ends, trying to differentiate between the wood and the steel.

It really wouldn’t be right to not include a Pannier, so here is 7414 posing alongside the Bala Toad.

It’s a funny thought that the real 7414 probably shunted the real W68669 over half a century ago……oh to have a time machine!

Van Vactory

An enjoyable time was had at the Thirsk Show last Sunday (even with some slight ribbing regarding my move to all things Western). In between demoing, I finished off some detailed work on this below, a Bachmann (ex Mainline) Mink.

Since I returned from the show, and after some enjoyable chats with David Scott regarding Wagons, I have thrown myself into a couple of Parkside kits. First up, a post war 12 ton LNER all ply van (dia 195).

An enjoyable and straightforward kit to go together. I will add Vac pipes shortly, couplings shall be added after painting.

_MG_8293

Another Parkside kit, a earlier style Mink (built as a V16). I shall be weathering it similar to the prototype photographs depicted in Geoff Kent’s 4mm Wagons Book 2.

It’s a shame that nobody has produced a kit for V36, the plywood post war Mink. It is a van which I have photos of working on the Blaenau – Bala Branch. It’s not urgently required, but I certainly would like to have a representation of this van at some point.

Finally, you will have noted a touch of tweaking to the blog. Special thanks to Tony Wright for initially taking the photo of my two 74s, and then the thanks has to go to Alan Buttler for converting it into a BR style banner. As far as I’m concerned, it looks the part 🙂

You dirty old (Brake) Van!!

As an epilogue to yesterdays blog post. I’ve finally finished my BR 20T Brake Van. This was originally a bachmann offering, which has had the inner verandah altered. Bachmann produced it planked on the inside, when it should ply.

Since I took these photographs I’ve added correct lamp configurations for an unfitted train seen as that is what all pick up goods are. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, as I can now depict a typical pick up fright on the branch.

Hopefully Modelu will produce a guard figure, and if so one shall have pride of place on the verandah of this Brake Van. 🙂