Model T railcar

More Progress

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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.

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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 15th December

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Monday was a normal session, and we wished bon voyage to Mr Chairman who is escaping the next few storms in Florida.

Tuesday saw our Wizard fettling a Peak (I think), LBH messing about ineffectually in his corner,

Luke, having eased the over-tight meshing on his Railcar chassis, gave the gearset a good running in and then assembled the chassis for the non-powered car,

Wagonman made great leaps forward with his Mogul,

And TAFKATYS virtually completed a baseboard and enclosure from a standing start in the evening. Bwthyn y Rhosod II will be a 7mm scale, 16.5 mmm gauge layout, which we hope to see at NEWGOG next year.

A very good turn out on Friday, the final discussions on the baseboard for the Jubilee Challenge were followed by a decision to process with the laser-cut proposal, our Wizard evading the camera while working on a job that shall nor be named, LBH on some telegraph poles for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae, while we saw …

More progress on the U1 from Wagonman, with some lovely work on the motion.

Ed is honing his card modelling skills and has pushed this preprinted kit almost to completion.

Having progressed Bwthyn i Rhosod II so far adding legs TAFKATYS steps back to contemplate the next step.

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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.

Week ending 8th December Read More »

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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