Monday, and BYR2 progresses further with holes cut in the ends for access to the fiddle yards. But the big challenge was . . . . . will it fit in the car?
Automatic tailgates will test whether it fits well. After the initial failure, moving the front seats forward a bit and straightening the baseboard, all was well.
Friday was the annual post-Christmas curry and drinks. As normal we went to Hatti for the meal, so with their usual bright blue lighting we didn’t take any photos.
Friday 3 January saw a good turnout of nine people, Paul S fitted end protectors onto Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae, Wagonman prepared a Agenoria kit for an ex- CM&DPLR pannier tank, LBH worked on some weird wagons, Fred on a wagon kit, Andrew on his signal box and
Don brought his railcar along for a bit of attention, the original assemblers had been a tad too parsimonious with the solder allowing the bogie pivot to come adrift.
Ed worked on a kit for a pair of semis
Luke made good progress on his S7 0-4-0T
And TAFKATYS spent some valuable time planning the arrangement of his 0-16.5 layout, Bwthyn y Rhosod II with building mock-ups.
Our last meeting of 2024 fell on a Monday. not many of us wishing to forfeit New Year’s Eve at home. LBH was very proud of himself for successfully changing a failed encoder in his NCE PowerCab,
Luke made a start on his first kit-built standard gauge loco, an 0-4-0T from a Connoisseur kit, which will be built to Scaleseven standards. Before long the footplate was assembled.
Paul S made a frame to allow Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae to be transported more safely.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another quiet Monday will only Andrew J and LBH in attendance.
Andrew progressed with his Signal Box for Lyne Road
In an attempt to model the August 1912 delivery of 12 axles of Mansell wheels from Pickering, Wishaw to the Brecon and Merthyr’s works at Machen in the Evans and Bevan coal wagons (numbers 1296, 1297 and 1298 if you must know), LBH has made a start by commissioning 3d prints of the wheels from Andrew Smith of 3D printolutions. Wagons to follow hopefully before too long.
Tuesday was quiet too, the cold snap not helping matter, but work continued on Signal box, goods shed. Southern mogul and antediluvian wagons, but all the efforts evaded the camera’s shutter (do they still have shutters?).
Friday was a tad busier with four members in attendance.
Luke is making good progress with his 7mm GWR Loroit
And at last LBH has an accurate boiler thanks to the efforts of all round good egg Richard Spoors.
Thanks to his efforts a replacement etch was made, which LBH rolled on Friday.
Elsewhere Mr Chairman continued with the short wheelbase wagons and Andrew J worked on the Signl Box.
