Author name: Rodney Hall

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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Week commencing 16th December

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Monday and Tuesday saw a fair bit of activity at the club with a particularly goos turnout on Monday.

Luke has finished assembling and painting his Loriot and is obviously becoming a dab hand at soldering (despite his protestations).

Wagonman (does he need a new moniker?) is still taking great strides with his mogul.

This is fast becoming the Gozzy Show with Luke making good progress with his Railcars, and, below some Tal-y-llyn coaches from 3d prints

And TAFKATYS has completed the baseboard and legs on his narrow gauge layout.

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Week ending 8th December

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Monday saw us welcome a prospective new member, Dennis, who enlivened the afternoon with a sick 00 engine and memories of Mountain Ash NCB. Amongst other activities Rhobat was working on his etched brass Hunslet; Mr Chairman the short wheelbase wagons and LBH fettling Llanastr track work. No pics to show though, sorry.

Tuesday was a Zoom session and time for the Christmas Quiz. Steve Bell entertained us first with a short video of a preserved line in Japan, complete with shunters wearing white gloves. The quiz tested us on railways of all sorts in Wales, e.g. name five current stations in Wales that contain the letter J? Steve finished off the session with history and pics of the Knoxville to Sevierville short line in Tennessee.

Two of us snuck in on Friday evening before Storm Darragh could do its worst.

LBH tested the fettled trackwork on Llanastr with his three B&MR locos with (ahem) acceptable results.

Luke added motor and pick ups to the chassis for the Model T based railbus.

And LBH tested out his newly-converted-to-S7 Peckett E class and fitted it with a DCC decoder. It will be named Alma and operate at the works shunter on the Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae Tar Works. Its DCC code is naturally 1854. Conversion to S7 was undertaken by Colin Dowling.

Later its dome-safety valve was fitted and now it needs weathering.

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Week ending 1st December

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Perhaps Storm Bert deterred a few this week, but we had four members present and two guests, Phil and Cory, good to see you.

Dave is still working on the short wheelbase coal wagons and we took the opportunity to pose some of them with LBH’s Manning Wardle Class I, the B&MR’s Lady Cornelia, which was built thirty years ago, on Llanastr.

Not entirely coincidently the image is not so different from this, taken at the Rhymney Iron Works probably in the 1880s

Operating Llanastr at the open day threw up some issues with the track alignment between the baseboards, so after 40 years we thought it might be timely fix some proper dowels. Here is Paul discharging the drill’s battery to this end.

Tuesday and numbers are up to 8 today. But despite the number of people there were periods of studious silence when we were just getting on with modelling. Perhaps that was due to the drill battery going flat so PaulS had less to do.

Luke continues work on his Loriot, now applying buffers and ABB was moved into the workroom for attention to the electrics by TAFKATYS. We are hopeful for some test running on Friday.

Friday and numbers were back to normal, with Fred, Paul 🏅🏅, Mr Chairman, Luke, Wagonman and LBH all making an appearance.

The operation of Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae’s fiddle yards at Statfold proved problematic, with the operators unable to view the front of the layout so see what was happening.

So we’ve decided to try operation from the front. This necessitated removal of the board on the front of the Fiddle Yard above approx 1″ the surface, which Paul did on Friday.

Having got the Loroit to the paintshop, Luke is now working on a model T railcar. Or more exactly a pair of them to work back to back. Here’s the result of the first 30 mins work.

The Southern U class progresses on Wagonman’s workbench. The smokebox, boiler and firebox are now joined as one piece.

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Week ending 3rd November

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Monday was a little quiet this week and not much in front of the camera.

Nevertheless LBH installed some plasticard floors in the short wheelbase S7 wagons

A few more attended on Tuesday; Fred working on a DJH kit for a D95xx BR(WR) 0-6-0 Diesel Hydraulic, Luke fettling the chassis of TR’s Dolgoch, LBH fettled the old wagons a bit and

Wagonman is making great progress with his ex-SR U class mogul from a David Andrews kit. Moving on from the tender, and having previously assembled the footplate and valences, he annealed the firebox and cab roof to make bending the complex curves easier. This shows the state of progress.

And Luke and LBH discussed plans for the Open Day and the development of the design for the S4 Jubilee Layout

By Friday the 4mm short wheelbase wagon had been primed, showing the detail more clearly. Not surprisingly the correct pattern buffer heads and rams are not readily available. An attempt was made with a standard buffer head and some 2mm brass tube. It needs gluing in properly. Cutting and fettling the short piece of brass required some time on the floor looking for the ones that escaped.

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