Curry Night!
Friday 5th January we held our traditional Yuletide curry.
Quiz Night
Tuesday was a regular Zoom session which featured the second Quiz of the festive season. Quizmaster StephenB teased us with Welsh based questions requiring a bit of in-depth knowledge of minor railway locomotives – which I sadly lacked. The final question – current TfW stations with a k in them – was also taxing. (there are 18 of them).
New Years Day
Only two were in attendance, Mr Chairman and LBH, both working on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. MrC on ballasting and the control panel and LBH on scenics.
In the foreground we can see where MrC is ballasting, but it’s more difficult to pick out where LBH is adding wire (actually elastic filament) to the further fence.
The old Pol Sands control panel has to be moved to a new box. As you can see from the shot of the rear the buttons will unscrew but 15mm holes will be needed in the new box. The largest drill available was 10mm so the crude use of a reamer took that up to 12mm, then the even cruder file work got 15mm – ish holes. The finished result is below, though the lines need to be drawn in properly.
last meeting of the year
Wagonman is working on an ex-SECR birdcage brake 3rd – Blacksmith Kit – to be completed as departmental mess & tool van – (one or two of these found their way to the western region stock in the 1960’s), on the right you can leads running to a motor that MrChairman is giving a run to see if it quietens down (it did).
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Path to the halt
From Late November LBH hacked away at perfectly good scenery …
… to provide a location for the new access path to Rhyd-y-Gwern Halt.
The path to the halt ‘platform’ has been developed. Firstly a retaining wall was formed (1) using Intentio card stone sheets, (2) the stone as weathered using powdered (3) capping stones were added using modelling clay (4) the base of the wall was bedded in (more clay) (5) that was weathered (6) foliage added and (7) gravel laid on the path.
By the end December the path to the halt had taken form.
Christmas Party / Running Track session
Here is a selection of what ran on the main test track. The MR 0-4-4 T has been seen before but now had a chance at an extensive run which it did really well. Also stretching its legs was the streamlined railcar, a relatively new purchase.
Below we see American stock from MikeE and a Heljan Mogul that has been in a box for quite a long time.
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Past Times
Our blog posts started at the very end of 2023, before then we had separate pages for various periods, follow the links below to see what we’d been up to.
Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae Backscene
The backscene has been printed and here it is held up more-or-less in place behind the layout,
Luke has sourced the lettering for the station nameboard.
And Paul has fitted the mounts so the panel can sit on either side of the layout.
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Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae Fiddle Yards and suport
Paul (S) primarily and LBH worked on the baseboard and support modifications on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae.
The trestles have been extended in to raise the track level to approx 4’1″
When LBH laid out the new bases for the cassettes on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae’s fiddle yard it became apparent that more space would be required to accommodate anything like a decent train so PaulS set to to extend them by 15″. Here’s the start.
In December Paul assed the extension to the West fiddle yard
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LBH gets destructive on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae.
LBH has had a rethink and the revamped Pol Sands will bear the name Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae (rather than Y Draethen). Th halt will retain the name Rhyd-y-Gwern though
LBH has started some re-modelling/vandalism on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae.
LBH gets destructive on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. Read More »