Friday 23rd February

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A quietish Friday with cleaning underway on Frecclesham .

With the scenic side of Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae largely attended to and the baseboards disassembled while Frecclesham is readied for its trip to Ally Pally LBH reverted to type and went back to building wagons. This time he is trying the Prickley Pear wagon springing units for some ADR two-plank wagons. The solebars on the wagons will need to be eased slightly to allow the rocking units to move.

Another visitor to Frecclesham was Luke’s Dapol Terrier. This also ran successfully and tested the now adjusted turnouts. Luke also was busy removing accumulated dust from the surfaces with a trusty brush and vacuum. Hopefully you can see the difference it makes in the last picture where the darker area below the ground signal has been swept clean.

Friday 23rd February Read More »

Tuesday Update

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The third Tuesday of each month we split our forces, some of us meeting in the clubrooms, others on Zoom

At the club rooms we added Frecclesham’s fiddle yard to the other boards. Then it had a vacuum over and the trackwork cleaned. Testing was successful with just a few of the turnouts requiring adjustment next session.

A stranger to Frecclesham, Pannier 3603 rests after taking on water, following a testing session on the layout.

Those on zoom looked at Warwickshire Railways’ excellent coverage of Hockley Goods Depot and some of Jim Richards’ fascinating photos of wagons taken in the Barmouth and Penmaenpool areas around the time of the grouping (example). Chat meandered through WD WW1 GBVs (the Cambrian definitely bought some, did the B&MR too?) and commercially available Ocean coal wagons in OO.

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Friday 16th February

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Here is the Welsh Wizard’s latest acquisition – which amazingly he did not build himself. Having recently had a chip fitted it was with us to have a DCC address assigned and various features tested, such as the internal lighting which can be turned on as ceiling lights, or sconces on the window pillars, or both. As can be seen, the level of internal detail is excellent.

The Chairman’s 4248 is on the workbench as the gearbox has given trouble with excessive wear of the worm wheel. After carefully dismantling and extracting the gearbox alignment issues were found. The planning of a replacement has begun.

Friday 16th February Read More »

Back to DCC?

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The space available for a battery in a Manning Wardle Class K has proven to be too limited so it is reverting to DCC and thus pickups will be required. Unfortunately the perfectly good OEM ones were removed and have gone astray so some new ones will need to be fabricated.

Fitted with a DCC decoder and reunited with its body, it ran but not well and LBH will need to give a bit more attention to the pickups.

Back to DCC? Read More »

First outing.

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11 February saw Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae’s first exhibition at the Monmouth Rotary Club Exhibition.

Click the settings cog to pick the caption language. You may also view a similar video on YouTube here (mp4 file) or here (ogg file).

With a little help from my friends ..

Just in this view we have an ex-ADR loco and three wagons borrowed from Peter Drost, GBV and platelayers’ hut built and painted by MrC, backscene designed by Bernie, running-in board and chairs painted by Fred, old backscene removed by Paul 🏅, Andrew made the FPL cover.

So a bit more than just a little help!

A GWR Pontypridd to Newport service rattles through Rhyd-y-Gwern Halt.

First outing. Read More »

More Preparation

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The NDR brake van is just about finished and ready for duty on Sunday at the Monmouth show.

Luke’s suggestion of a private siding behind the wall looks good.
A hint of what might run at the show.

With the goods shed not yet available a quick mock-up was made to block the view of exit to the fiddle yard.

Meanwhile Wagonman has started on a NE 6 wheel brake.

By the end of the evening the Goods Shed had acquired a rough coat of paint and a wooden FPL cover was fitted (Andrew N also made a hinged metal cover which will be fitted after the exhibition.

And Luke finished building and painting the layout nameboard.

More Preparation Read More »

Tuesday’s Talk

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This Tuesday’s Talk featured various pictures of the colliery line to NCB Graig Merthyr colliery, Pontardulais. MrChairman showed pictures including enthusiasts visits and regular workings. Later MrBell provided various interesting photos including some B&M and Barry locos. There were a select five present, but of course, work was continuing on Ty’n y Coedcae at the clubrooms.

Tuesday’s Talk Read More »

Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae Lineside

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Andrew N turned up with a couple of items for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae – a gradient post showing how the line climbs from the valley floor towards Caerphilly and a milepost in true B&MR style denoting 5 3/4 miles from Bassaleg.

Also from Andrew, but not photographed, were some components for the Facing Point Lock.

Elsewhere, out of shot, Rhobat continued with the yard crane and LBH wired up the west fiddle yard.

MrChairman worked on the cabling from the control panel to the Alex Jackson coupling magnets.

The relative simplicity here contrasts with panels 20 plus years ago when one could hear the phrase “knit me a control panel, Nellie” when work was in progress.

A bit more linesidary sprouted up on Tuesday, in the shape of a fixed lamp, that was installed at the halt to show drivers where the halt was in the hours of darkness.

Fred produced a running-in board for the halt, setting it off well.

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Further brake van progress

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The full brake gear can be seen with the pull rod running to the handbrake wheel. The folded up long footboards have had the brackets strengthened with wire, though if you look carefully some of the very delicate riveted fixings have broken off. After fixing they are quite strong though. there are short upper footboards too along with the hand brake column and safety loops which were bent up from wire as none were provided in the kit. with these components fitted the van is nearly ready for painting.

Further brake van progress Read More »

After the mess

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With the Evostik cleaned off the floor more of the cassettes could be assembled. At the front are three loco-sized ones, properly weighted down while the glue sets. The long cassette to the back only has one of the aluminium angles glued in so it can be left to set. It is much easier to check and guarantee the correct gauge over the 1.2 m length if both aluminium strips are not able to shift on the glue.

After the mess Read More »

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