Author name: Rodney Hall

Cwm Carno trackbed and ABB uncouplers

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Work continued on the trackbed on Cwm Carno, which is now fixed in place.

When we got the framework laser cut, thanks to TAFKATYS’s prescience, we also got a set of alignment gauges made to check the we had the correct elevation difference and that we hadn’t introduced a warp into the trackbed.

Elsewhere we worked on reviving and old Mainline pannier tank, uniting an elderly brass chassis with a modern Bachmann body. The chassis will need a bit of TLC and the body a bit of detailing and weathering but it should provide a useful loco for Cwm Carno.

Mr Chairman sorted out a problem that we had with one of the servo motors that move the uncoupling magnets on ABB. It was working in the wrong sense, that is normally in the up/uncoupling position, this was sorted out by swapping over the blue and orange cables inside the control box.

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Monday 17th February

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Monday and the usual activities in the workroom, etched kits to the fore in Rhobat’s and the Wizard’s hands, while in the layout room work progressed on the Cwm Carno baseboard.

The river bed is the lowest, central strip of plywood.

We first gave attention the river bed, square wooden blocks screwed and glued to the vertical risers and the river bed for our version of Nant Carno.

Blocks have been fixed in place too for the trackbed, but it is seen here just placed in situ.

Forming the weir in Nant Carno.

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Week ending 16th February

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Monday saw five of us at at the club.

Continuing the etched brass tank engine meme from last week, Rhobat, with the helpful Wizard’s eye, is also essaying his first loco, in this case a Hunslet Jazzer kit in OO from the CSP range.

Meanwhile LBH converted a B&MR PBV to S7. Now it needs some serious weathering!

Tuesday evening we largely concentrated on runs-through of the ABB table honing a few items here and there. Wagonman continued to work on his ex-CM&DP pannier tank, the Wizard on a diesel (a Peak perhaps), and LBH on a gearbox for a 2-4-0T.

Friday and the next job to do on Cwm Carno was to cut the plywood for the track- and river beds. The initial idea was to extract the positions of the edges on the trackbed at 150 mm intervals from the drawing below.

That approach wasn’t welcomed by the club carpenter, Paul S!

Instead, we had already obtained a full-size print of the layout drawing for planning purposes, so we drilled small holes through it to plywood below marking the borders of the beds. Then by ‘joining up the dots’ we were able to use a jigsaw to the correct outline. Here we see the river bed in place, but not yet fixed.

And here’s the trackbed placed on the frame. The top of the picture is the top of the valley with, from the left, ‘mainline’, headshunt and colliery screens.

There are adjustments to make at the entry and exit points.

Meanwhile in the workroom a small parade of locos was assembled.; two pannier tanks and two 56xx’s. From left to right we have the Ditton Priors tank that’s featured before, two 4mm scale tanks from Mike E’s stable (which ran much better after the wheels had been thoroughly cleaned) and a brand new Minerva Models 7mm 56xx. This last belongs to Ed who in true Newport fashion has his feet in both the 4mm and 7mm camps.

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Week ending 2nd February

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Monday saw us starting to glue together the baseboard for Cwm Carno,

By the end of the afternoon we had glued the perimeter, with a number of strengthening blocks added the joints. And we see Mr Chairman applying some PVA.

And Rhobat is making a hut for Cwm Carno, the roof is yet to finished.

Gluing and clamping continued on Tuesday along with discussion of materials for the trackbase and its fixing.

While all this was in progress we did our first practise timetable with ABB. There were the expected usual issues with coupling/uncoupling, otherwise it was satisfactory. The slightly revised timetable was better, though it would have helped if the signalman, yard and driver all had the same version.

Friday, and five of us chose to not watch Wales trying to play rugby. The Cwm Carno baseboard had dried nicely and was light and rigid enough for an ancient club member to lift by himself. It was on its way to being inverted, so that the last strengthening pieces could be glued underneath with assistance from Luke.

Meanwhile, back in the workroom;

Wagonman continues with the Ditton Priors pannier tank and brought along photos of it at Newport Dock Street in the 50’s.

Luke has the boiler test-fitted in place and the bunker completed.

The Welsh Wizard continued working on a pannier tank that needed TLC.

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Week ending 26th January

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Another week the club and a fair turnout on Monday

With the Scalefour Jubilee Challenge criteria specify that entrant layouts must fit in a car, so we checked that the Cwm Carno baseboard fitted in one. Here it is in LBH’s Peggie, and it just scraped in. We might need to trim some of the beams to make sure it’ll fit in satisfactorily and recheck regularly.

Elsewhere Rhobat was working on a hut, also for Cwm Carno.

Andrew N just finished ten (yes 10) of the 3dPrintolutions wagons to scalefour standards. Suspension methods include compensation and springing – both internal and external, unfortunately as they stand they are a bit too light (typically 22g) to run reliably so will need further weighting.

Friday brings a few adjustments (i.e. correcting where LBH messed up) to some of the components of Cwm Carno baseboard and it’s more-or-less ready for glueing.

The corrections included new slots at the correct levels being cut at the south end, though the chunky support piece also needs raising. And extra, smaller holes for wiring feeds were made.

Elsewhere Wagonman and Luke were working on their pannier and side tanks respectively.

Luke now has the inner sides of the tanks fitted, and after a clean with Viakal is looking the part.

Wagonman’s pannier tank is one of the Cleobury Mortimer and Ditton Priors locos rebuilt by the GWR. This one will be GWR No 28 as you can see in the photo. The nice reversing lever in the cab was believed to have fallen on the floor and after a bit of scrabbling around was actually found up on the work surface. Typical!

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Week ending 19th January

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On Monday a little reorganising was done. With the components for the Jubilee Challenge / Cwm Carno baseboards due to arrive this week, possibly, a work-surface was created to enable construction at a reasonable height rather than grovelling on the floor. Care was take to get it nice and flat.

It apparently didn’t occur to Poppy’s Woodtech that anyone would be daft enough to build a 7’6″ wheelbase wagon, but, yes, LBH is quite daft enough so the jig is being modified with an extra slot at 6′ to provide 7’6″ in combination with the +1’6″ slot.

In the background you can see the Gilvach (sic) wagon patiently awaiting its axleguards.

By the time Tuesday arrived plans had changed slightly and ABB needed to be erected, which with 8 weeks until its appearance at Ally Pally was a good move too. It was levelled (with some effort) and successfully tested for trackwork. Next will come uncoupling checks and cleaning.

Further vegetation for ABB appeared too.

Friday the laser-cut parts for the Jubilee Challenge/Cwm Carno were delivered chez LBH. And with the aid of Fred and his van transported to the club.

Within a few minutes the packing was opened revealing the fifty-odd components of the baseboard framework.
And just a further few minutes later the components fell together with surprising speed and ease, much to everyone’s (especially LBH’s) relief.

There a few errors that will need to be sorted out before the pieces are glued together. Mr Chairman and LBH can be seen plotting remedial action.

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Welcome 2025

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Friday 3 January saw a good turnout of nine people, Paul S fitted end protectors onto Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae, Wagonman prepared a Agenoria kit for an ex- CM&DPLR pannier tank, LBH worked on some weird wagons, Fred on a wagon kit, Andrew on his signal box and

Don brought his railcar along for a bit of attention, the original assemblers had been a tad too parsimonious with the solder allowing the bogie pivot to come adrift.

Ed worked on a kit for a pair of semis

Luke made good progress on his S7 0-4-0T

And TAFKATYS spent some valuable time planning the arrangement of his 0-16.5 layout, Bwthyn y Rhosod II with building mock-ups.

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2024’s last hurrah

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Our last meeting of 2024 fell on a Monday. not many of us wishing to forfeit New Year’s Eve at home. LBH was very proud of himself for successfully changing a failed encoder in his NCE PowerCab,

Luke made a start on his first kit-built standard gauge loco, an 0-4-0T from a Connoisseur kit, which will be built to Scaleseven standards. Before long the footplate was assembled.

Paul S made a frame to allow Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae to be transported more safely.

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Christmas Party and Test Track Evening

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Friday 20 December was the date chosen for our annual Christmas Party and Test Track Evening, this year 0 gauge being supplemented by 16.5 mm gauge for OO and 0-16.5.

The newly-released Lionhearted 3MT performed well straight from the box and garnered a lot of interest.
American short lines have engaged several members interest.
Luke’s quickly-progressing ModelT Railcar had a good run out.
Paul S almost answered the call for a Christmas Jumper, sporting an apt T-shirt.

Not captured in the photos but we and a couple of guests had a very enjoyable evening aided by some fine, often home made, foods and drink.

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