Highland Station
Rhobat has been working on this Peco laser cut kit. Its based on Arisaig on the West Highland. The accuracy of the cutting helps with forming the bay windows which can be tricky.
Burnham & District MRC Exhibition, Weston-super-Mare
A good day out was had with the chairman’s layout.
The proud creator at the controls.
Brake lights to be added once a BR loco takes over.
The well-travelled Cold Tea crate, with its latest destination, Weston 1/24, just added
Leading to the traditional post-exhibition toast.
Burnham & District MRC Exhibition, Weston-super-Mare Read More »
Week-ending 12th January 2024
Mr Chairman has been busy finishing some huts for Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. Working clockwise from the top:
The woodwork on an original Pol Sands hut has been repainted to match a the new Edwardian period.
LBH assembled a 422 Modelmaking Timber Platelayers’ Hut kit and Mr C ‘repaired’ a broken batten and painted it.
Finally MrC has revived an earlier model of a scratch built wooden hut. In its original location the rear wasn’t visible, so wasn’t finished to the same standard as the rest. However on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae it’ll be both viewer-facing and close to the front so an upgrade is needed. MrC ingeniously sourced the thin wooden sheet from Camembert packaging.
Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae fiddle yard and a tale of two glues, Paul🏅manfully overcame the effects of the solvent of the contact adhesive used to fix the formica while LBH was a tad heavy-handed with the Resin W bottle leading to a spill not too dissimilar in appearance to a Christmas cake.
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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.