At Monday’s club session we received this mock-up for the station building on Cwmcarno. The terrace behind is only temporary being some built for another layout.
The Zoom meeting on Tuesday was lightly attended. Preparations for the NEWGOG show continued while we were on-line, holding over any presentations until next month.
Friday was preparation for the NEWGOG show followed by the exhibition itself on Saturday. Of course club traditions were observed and the layout performed well with perhaps too much (!) stock available.
Starting on Monday and Andrew N delivered the turnout and track for the colliery built away from the clubrooms. It has suitably dirty sleepers and prototypical variations in the quality of the trackwork. This should be manageable as only 4 wheeled wagons and small shunting locos will operate here.
The two views are down from the screens to the exchange sidings, and in the reverse direction.
Also present on Monday was the Peak class diesel, just completed by the Welsh Wizard, Fred Lewis from a kit of ancient lineage.
Moving to Tuesday and Luke’s railcar re-appears, now with a tarpaulin fitted over the open goods compartment.
In the layout room the mock-up of the colliery has moved on with the level ground created and walling arranged. We are approaching the atmosphere of a narrow valley with river and railway crammed in the bottom.
Finally some adjustments to Ty’n-y-Coedcae have created the space for a crane in the goods yard, with a fence being moved and a plinth built for the crane.
At the end of Friday the turnout for Cwm Carno has progressed with the crossing in place and the curved stock rail too.
On Ty’n’Coedcae the plinth for the crane has a surface and first coat of paint and is seen roughly in the right position. Also the front of the layout has a fresh coat of paint ready for the NEWGOG show next Saturday.
The adventure to Ally Pally over we turned our attention back to Cwm Carno
TAFKATYS made a set of card mock-ups of the main colliery buildings to enable us to assess how they would fit into the layout topography and affect sight lines.
Meanwhile, back in the workroom, Luke has started on one of the points for Cwmcarno. The sleepers and timbers are cut to length and by the end of the session all were in place using double sided tape. Then there will be a bit of soldering to be done.
Continuing on Friday with the trackwork, more etched chairs were folded up by Mr C. After cutting off the fret they are folded with forceps, then finally shaped against the blocks with a screwdriver. Meanwhile Luke was soldering some into place.
For the control panel TAFKATYS tried out wiring and programming coloured LEDs to indicate the position of the points on the track diagram. This was successful so now the rest of the LEDs need wiring in.
Having bought some very cheap 7mm point work Mike E launched into a short line project titled the Hogwash and Balony Railroad. The station building is in progress and three very nice boxvan kits have arrived. They’ve probably cancelled out any savings made on the pointwork.
Away from the clubroom Andrew N has started to produce some track work for Cwm Carno – to be precise the colliery sidings and in flat-bottom to boot.
Enough going on at the club this evening but nothing to precipitate the action of a camera shutter. There was a run through of the ABB timetable with a different combination of operators, TAFKATYS wired the control panel while Paul 🏅🏅 assembled the frame for the pelmet, both for Cwm Carno, the Wizard identified castings and LBH assembled a loom for the battery-power radio-control of ADR No 14.
Well, actually we did get one pic of how things were on Friday. This shows the progress TAFKATYS made on the Cwm Carno panel.
After we fixed the trackbed on Cwm Carno it was apparent that it needed further support to prevent excessive flexing and ensure the it was in one plane throughout the areas supporting turnouts to give us the best chance of reliable running. Paul S added several braces to this end.
Sticking to Cwm Carno, Andrew N has produced what may prove to be the first items of stock specifically for the layout. They are all based on the Masokits whitemetal kits from the 1980s (when, coincidentally, LBH was involved in the enterprise).
And Wagonman looks like he has pretty well reached the finishing line with his ex-CMDPLR pannier.
Away from the clubrooms our members are busy:
Stephen B has created Locomotive no.7, aka “the brick”. It is being built for the mysteriously-titled Project Kevin and will be the test bed for battery powered radio control. He reckons that he should be able to get a small power station in there.
Other works progressed though, with Luke turning his attentions from the body of his 0-4-0T to its chassis. A write-up of Luke’s build can be found in the Scaleseven Group website here.
Friday also saw TAFKATYS arrive with the planned control panel for Cwm Carno. After discussion the uncoupling magnet positions are settled and by Sunday it’s been completed.
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.
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.
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.
