Many shoulders to the wheel one Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae on Monday
Paul 🏅🏅made a removable shelf for the Tar Works siding on Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae. The split in the sleepers is a quick conversion from 0 gauge to S7!
Elsewhere Mr Chairman made up sprung inside-bearing units for S7 wheel sets for some wagons and Andrew J ground the old 0 gauge axles out, while LBH attended to some areas that were tight to gauge.
Conversion of this little beauty will have to wait for a few weeks though.
Tuesday’s Talk featured a presentation on Rhobat’s proposed layout. With the aim of keeping it simple and achievable it will be in 00 with a through mainline and a few sidings. It will be called Silstwn and is based on Gileston on the Barry Railway. Following on from that in a similar vein Andrew N ran us through his list of ‘Welsh stations that would make good models’. Then LBH had some additional pics gleaned from the internet.
Monday saw us getting things straight in the clubrooms, having quickly dumped ABB off after a long and fraught journey back from Scaleforum. LBH erected Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae in the vacant space in preparation for its trip to Warley at Statfold in a couple of weeks time.
Mr Chairman gave a casual glance to a 3d-printed smokebox/tank/fittings component for a TVR Class V from Taff Vale Models and pronounced himself very satisfied with the result.
Fred has done a great job finishing off LBH’s ADR No 14, here see posing at Rhyd-y-Gwern Halt.
LBH made a couple of additions to Tŷ’n-y-Coedcae in the form of a water crane (which still needs to be bedded in) and a storage tank in the Alma Tar Works.
Wagonman has completed a BR(WR) Autocoach in 0 Gauge.The trailer is a Hawkesworth A38 from an Orion kit – (now marketed by Ragstone) – finished in the lined crimson livery adopted from 1957- W223W was allocated to Gloucester in 1964 and was used on the final Gloucestershire Railway Society tour of the Cirencester and Tetbury branches before the railbus services ceased – also would have been a regular on the Chalford auto-service which finished in October 1964.
Here’s the same coach with its more modern partner. It is correct for the final service on the Chalford autotrains out of Gloucester. Loco 1472 was also at 85B at this time
Also from Wagonman is this composite coach from a Haywood Models kit. It will be used as the centre car of a three coach set suitable for secondary services.
Next on Wagonman’s list is a corridor connection – here we see it opening and closing.
As has been trailed for a while we took ABB to Scaleforum this year.
En route we called in at the Didcot Railway Centre
We stopped for lunch.
Local Hero, Trojan, performed well
A Prairie sizzled
Trojan shuffled wagons and delighted us
The Castles looked OK
ABB got erected
The terrace fitted in well
The station operator’s view.
R&R after a long day
At the actual show we tend to be busy and forget to take pictures. Here’s one from later on Sunday.
No. 4 is collecting full coal wagons from the siding to take into the off-scene factory. Earlier in the sequence it had deposited empties in the same siding.
And of course, we can’t let an exhibition pass without the customary cold tea toast.
Here we see, L to R, Mr Chairman, LBH, Paul🏅🏅, TAFKATYS, Andrew N, Wagonman and Jonathan.
Preparations for Scaleforum continue at a near frantic pace. However, on Monday Rhobat brought along the decorated samples for his Cambrian 2-plank wagons to be marketed under the Bryngaer Models label. They are in Cambrian and GW livery.
With Scaleforum getting closer more attention to preparation of stock, getting the ground surface ready for the terrace and tweaking and practicing the timetable on ABB.
Meanwhile Rhobat made some fascinating finds among his late father’s model collection …
This whitemetal GWR ex-Barry Class G 0-4-4T in OO. Rhobat plans to repaint in Barry Crimson
See the 4 August post for more on the Barry G class or click on Barry in the tags above to get all the Barry related posts.
and this pair of GWR Steam Railmotors, also in OO. Little is known of their origins.
Five of us attended Guildex in Stafford, and LBH made a few purchases:
A pair of S7 wagons, which on later examination proved to be sprung but had become gummed up. A few minutes attention freed up the axleboxes and they ran well.
They came in LMS livery, which LBH is removing to allow repainting in Midland colours.
And this Brecon and Merthyr Composite, superbly painted by Dave Studley. Luckily the conversion to Scaleseven was a quick and simple wheel swap.
Paul S has been sorting out the ground levels in preparation for the planting of the terrace Mr Chairman is working on.
Thursday saw an extra session snuck in, again for preparation for ABB‘s trip to Scaleforum – the throws of signal arms were adjusted, wheels were cleaned, routing macros were corrected, a fiddle yard casette split into two match traffic demands
Friday and Mike E arrived with his latest bargain. Only three of these prototypes were built by the Southern, with both 3rd rail and pantograph pick-up. The pantograph does actually unfold. Also the cab lights turn on, though it’s not apparent in the shot.
Mike E has also designed and fitted laser-cut window frames on the ABB Villas.
Mr Chairman has spent a while on the window furnishings on the terrace to good effect.
Seeing LBH struggling with the boiler fittings on ADR 14, and knowing that it’d be great to run it at Warley at Statfold, our resident Wizard kindly offered to fit the fittings and has also done a wonderful job of cleaning it up and removing LBH’s extensive extraneous solder.
Sunday and Mr Chairman has completed a trial assembly of the terrace.
Monday afternoon showed quite a good attendance at the club but little found its way in front of the camera
Preparations are naturally intensifying before ABB goes to Scaleforum. In a desperate last gasp effort LBH thinks he has fixed the problem with one of his S7 Victory class.
The ABB preparations include glueing in the structure for the long terrace taking care to get everything vertical. The laser cut parts are so accurate that a layer of primer paint has to be filed off before they will slide together.
You can see there are a couple of really early-bird customers in the chip shop waiting for a fresh batch of chips.
Tuesday and a Zoom session. Rhobat took us through the development of Caerphilly Works by the Rhymney Railway, then Steve B emerged from several internet rabbit holes with pictures of various sorts of gear-driven engines.
An extra quick session on Wednesday saw the final wall in front of the semis installed.
By Friday Mr Chairman had completed a lot of work on the terrace, which is starting to look the part ….
And the Chip Shop
A rake of ex-LMS stock, built by Mike G was put through its paces and passed with flying colours.
And the recent work of the cottages was blended in and the fencing given some weathering
No meeting on Monday as many of us were occupied elsewhere with it being a Bank Holiday
Tuesday saw more run-throughs and tweaking of the ABB timetable prior to Scaleforum. This exposed some maintenance needs on the stock, some of which is thirty years old, including this coach bogie.
Friday saw more timetable run-throughs on ABB and this ex-GWR 28xx was unearthed from the stock intended for LMJ.
It ran pretty well and hopefully will be able to make an appearance at Scaleforum.
Monday, and after wheel cleaning and track cleaning last Friday it was time to get the stock onto ABB. The fiddle yard is looking quite full.
Tuesday evening was enlivened by this delicious home made orange and almond cake from Luke, which, as you can see was very well received.
Friday morning saw the latest Scalefour News flop onto the front doormat with a view of ABB on the cover. Only four weeks to go now until we take ABB to Scaleforum.
In the evening Luke was preparing his Pos Siyntio for the forthcoming Open Day, Fred and LBH were grappling with a misbehaving 0-6-0 tank mechanism and Mr Chairman was readying stock for ABB.
On ABB in the train seen above the long parcels van is not well suited to the formation. It is tail traffic which moves to the shortish bay behind and it’s a bit too long for that, its colour is too different to the other coaches, but worst the corridor connections make uncoupling with a Dingham loop unreliable. The replacement is shorter without corridor connections, though we might opt for an even dirtier version.
The Dog Days of 2024 are upon us and things are a tad quiet at the club before we do into a jam-packed Autumn with the club being involved in four exhibitions plus an Open Day – put a note of 10 November in your diaries.
Rhobat and Fred are working together to produce a satisfactory bunker on Rhobat’s BR Class J. The first step is to create a mock-up using the rough cut pieces shown here.
Tuesday and Luke’s shunting plank has been erected on the new legs. After a bit of electrical soldering work we did some trial running.
Also the fence in front of the semis on ABB has been fixed with ground built up around it.
Friday and preparation of ABB continues. While the track and cassettes were being cleaned, the loco roster were in for wheel cleaning. Selecting 1954 as the time period does mean there are a lot of black engines and the picture is a bit reminiscent of Barry scrapyard.
Meanwhile Wagonman is preparing some GWR 9ft coach bogies in 7mm scale. The four of them are supposed to be identical. However, the pairs come from two different manufacturers and in the closer shot you can see that there are differences.
LBH rolled the second boiler for the B&MR Class 36. In the horizontal view you can see one of three temporary straps that were put in place while the internal gusset, seen in the end view, was soldered in place.
Monday and the wall and fence in front of the semis has been tried in place. It looks best at this level so there will be a bit of filling in of the ground to do. I should have made the walls deeper.
Freshly returned from a Missenden Modellers week, LBH has actually cleared space on his workbench so that his work tray can fit in. How long will it remain this tidy??
Tuesday we were meeting on Zoom. We started with discussions on the new test track and entries for next year’s exhibitions.
Later Steve Bell described the George Bennie Railway in Milngarvie outside Glasgow. It was a prototype, powered by electricity and though abandoned pre-war was not removed until the 1950’s. A kind of halfway towards a guided aeroplane, or maybe HS 0.5?
Friday was a quiet evening in the clubrooms, Andrew and Luke working on their respective layouts and Fred preparing to kick off a build of an A4.
LBH did a little on his ADR 14 with is getting close to needing a coat of paint.
