Llangerisech

Later Locos - BR Standard 4MTs Drws-y-Nant saw a lot of the 4MT standards in the early 60’s displacing a good number of the Manors. But I figured this would be a tricky build until I saw how nice the Farish Standard 5s were and I checked out line drawings and compared the 5 and 4. I discovered that the 4MT 4-6-0 could be laid side by side with a 5MT and the differences were: 1 shorter smoke box not quite flush with the footplate but much less proud 2 Chimney to front of firebox was critically the same shape according to the drawings 3 Shorter firebox with safety valves re-centred 4 Cab essentially the same as the 4MT Mogul with slightly shorter roof. The valve gear is almost a direct match, so the smaller driving wheels are the biggest difference, plus the shorter chassis back end. The rear wheelbase is 6 inches shorter, meaning 1mm movement on the model. OK a class expert may there is more to it than that, but they are the key visual differences. Bits of pipework are relatively simply to put together on top of the basic shape. I had a 4MT Mogul sitting around that I wanted to convert but never actually got around to and a friend had given me a second body for one of these, so I had one to pull apart. In the end I kept the original Mogul in one piece and bought a second spare 4MT mogul body, 2 tender bodies and 2 tender chassis mouldings (nothing mechanical) from the Farish spares department. In addition to the two 5MT victims, and a load of regular 2mm conversion bits, the following shows how I made the first of two 4MTs out of that lot and produce something that looks close enough to the photos I have for use on the layout. I knew I wanted 2 4MTs for the fleet, so purchased a couple of Standard 5s from the Bluebell Railway model shop which is now pretty much my nearest physical shop. Both were test run and found to be excellent runners. The challenge was to do all the conversion work without impacting the quality of operation and with minimal impact on the excellent finish of the Farish model. So this shows the cut to the 5MT body and then the old and new combinations side by side. After all the body measurements were done, I looked to figure out a way to shorten the wheelbase. As Farish use the hornblock style bearings, I figured I could replace the rear set with large items that allowed the rear axle to move forward. Milling the chassis to accommodate this was pretty straightforward, once the brave pill has been taken. But Farish will sell chassis blocks if all goes pear-shaped. Along with cut and shut coupling rods from the association shop and replacement wheels, the chassis mods were pretty simple after that – the same as doing a regular standard 5 finescale conversion. Admittedly some chopping with a hacksaw at the back end to make it fit the body was required, but this was just “excess” metal and had no mechanical impact. Basically anything metal aft of the motor on the top of the chassis and behind the drawbar pin on the lower section was removed along with a bit of fettling to allow the cab to sit in the right position. The 11mm drivers are part of the smaller size look of the 4MT and these certainly help visually. I made up a solid front bogie to use Association wheels, although the original bogie is still shown in the photos. The tenders use a conventional 2FS split chassis from etched nickel silver and PCB and this sits neatly into the tender. I put a 6 pin Zimo decoder in the tender and shortened the Farish drawbar, with soldered flexible wires to connect the stiff drawbar wires to the chassis. The motor wires followed the same sort of routing as per the 5MT back to the decoder. The tender bodies for the 4MT Mogul are BR2 tenders and have a good built in weight as the Moguls are tender drive. Without the mechanical gubbins there is good room for a decoder and a decent weight to make it ride well. Once all put together, no body painting or re-lining has been needed, only conventional number change transfers. So a combination of 73050 and 76053 has become 75023, and after a touch of weathering and a suitable Modelu crew, it will be ready for service on Drws y Nant. Then I just need to do the second one to create 75009! You can see here how much the 4MT combo is shorter than the original 5MT . It may not be perfect, but it captures the feel of the 4MT I see in the photos I have of Drws Y Nant. We hope to have some more 1950's and 60's trains running at Abrail in early March in addition to the 1930s stuff already available.

Funny, my Dean Goods was also hors de cambat with a detached loco to tender cable. Maybe Dean Goods engines sense being that near the Channel and throw a sickie so they don't get sent overseas again!

Well at the other end of the country we had a double header of Modbury and Drws-y-Nant at the Portsmouth Show organised by the South Hants MRC. Ian and Steve were having a good show with Modbury. While on Drws, Steve Dunkeyson was getting to grips with the DCC control while Michael engaged with a young visitor fascinated by the vehicles. A very good one day show, a number of folk made themselves known, which is always part of the fun aspect of exhibitions. The 2mm Roadshow was also present with Jerry and Paula holding fort with a regular flow of visitors. All the layouts were of a high standard, but the 2mm presence was certainly significant with 2 out of 12. Nigel

Well we debuted the new backscene at the Bala show this weekend. A photo I took 4 years ago has finally been printed into a backscene format and replaced the commercial version I have used up to now. This is the ID Backscenes item that we started with. It is good quality and had a very similar profile to the real place, so was a reasonable effort. But it comes in sections and however careful you are, it does suffer a little on a flexible background. It also puts the background a fair bit more distant. So the replacement is the genuine article, is all one piece and brings the valley in towards you more successfully. It is also printed on a more suitable vinyl. All in all money well spent on the printing. Just need to tone in the foreground tree foliage a little to blend even better. The camera was getting a little confused with light levels and the contrast is greater than the eye sees.

Also back from the show and more than a little tired. Thanks to the show team for a fabulous welcome and all the locals who attended and shared memories of Drws y Nant. We were expecting some degree of local interest, but the feedback surpassed all expectations. A lovely friendly society putting on the show with a real sense of community, so thank you again Mat and team for the invitation.

Just recovering from the journey back from the Bala show with Drws y Nant. It was a fascinating and totally different weekend. Michael and I started early from Surrey and took a circuitous route via Penmaenpool for lunch at the George III, Dolgoch and Abergynolwyn then Drws y Nant before unloading at the show. Although not the busiest show, this was around 10 miles from the actual location of Drws y Nant, so masses of local knowledge was absorbed during the show. We also debuted the new back scene which was specially printed from a photo of the actual location taken a few years back. We met John Roberts who was a signalman on the line and is responsible for more photos of the location than most. His reaction to the layout and knowledge of the place was fantastic. The Bala Lake Railway Society who put on the show held a social evening starting with a special train and a barbeque. For the historians, Julian Birley, vice President of the society had his Bentley present which used to belong to the famous railway photographer Ivo Peters. Various artifacts of Drws were shared with us including one of the tablets. On the Sunday, we were visited by the Roberts family who own the farm adjacent to the location and now own the signalman's cottage modelled on the layout. We had accidentally met a couple of them whilst I was showing the site to Michael and so we invited them to the show. The fact that 6 of them from 2 generations came along to see it and left fascinated was a huge compliment. And finally, we were visited by a chap who started talking knowledgeably as a friend of John Roberts, but turned out to be Martin Williams who wrote the main book I had used as the main source of images to build the layout. Many other locals shared their memories of the station, and for us operating the layout this was hugely absorbing. We came away from the show with more knowledge and appreciation for those involved, along with some subtle ideas for further development with the layout.

Well Drws y Nant is all loaded up ready for the journey to the land of my fathers (literally!). We will be stopping off at Drws y Nant en route, so if we don't show up at the show, send out a search party looking for wormholes. I suspect the Llangollen layouts could suffer the same fate if taking the appropriate route. See you in Bala.

Ruby Tuesday. Rolling Stones

Hi Don But if you do build a model of Mazeppa, think of all the level crossing gates you'd have to rebuild! I had a friend who lived in Shrewsbury and it seemed to be a 50/50 on the pronunciation. Check out the Mark Steel's in town episode on BBC Sounds for further confirmation of it. Could be a modern phenomenon since you left with a load of blow-ins! Good to hear from you and thanks for the comment. Nigel

Another vehicle At exhibitions, the moving vehicle has definitely been a bit of a hit, so another suitable for 1930s period was required. I have various ideas for future additions, including simple conversions of 1950s trucks. But let us have a look at the latest fleet addition. The layout is based in Wales and the nearest manufacturer of vehicles was actually Sentinel, just over the border in Shrewsbury. Having done a bit of digging, I found that a DG4 variant from around 1932 would be ideal. Of course, no-one produces one of these in 2mm scale, but having found drawings on line, I figured building one around a Faller chasis kit would be viable. So the cab was built up from plasticard with the nose a solid chunk that could be carved to shape. The sides and rear are standard sheet and after filing to shape, some wire was added to the nose to give the distinctive profile. The roof was separate to allow a basic interior and crew to be added. The main components were then painted, crew etc placed in and the roof added. Then the windscreen could be added and the whole lot placed on the chassis. The flatbed was then built to fit with a scribed plastic top and a brass substrate to keep it flat and strong. Once proven, the final items of underslung equipment, such as the boiler, tank and cylinder block could be made from plastic a s purely representative shapes rather than high-res modelling. This is, after all, a vehicle that is either moving or a good couple of feet from the viewing public, so the cruel close ups here are barely noticed on the layout. So we now have another option to ring the changes alongside the incumbent "Bedford". A little weathering and maybe some coal sacks as a suitable load still to be done, but I am happy with the results so far. During my research I found that Skoda produced these vehicles under licence and rarely had front windscreens in their versions. Maybe we should ask the Czechs to arbitrate on whether to pronounce Shrewsbury as Shrew or Shrow?? Nigel

Jig drilling fence posts As I had another batch to do I thought a quick picture of the jig would be in order. The block is 6mm square brass and has two steps milled into the underside so that it always sits level in the machine vice. The post slot was then milled using a 1mm bit which happily produces a rounded end for 1mm square brass posts. The five drilling points were then measured and initially drilled using the 0.3mm drill. Equivilents were also made at the front edge and lines then scribed to make lining up easier. Then the holes in the centre of the milled section are opened out to about 0.8mm to remove and load on the 0.3mm drill when drilling the posts. So each post is pushed in and just retained to one side of the hole with a screwdriver. Then the hole is drilled. Also shown are two posts at the 80 per cent complete stage and the mill set up to do the fifth hole. The gap between the lower holes is 1mm.

Hi Steve, The fencing is made up with 1mm square brass posts which are drilled in a jig on my Proxxon MF70 mill. Five holes are drilled using a 0.3mm drill. So I do batches in position 1, then go through the batch in position 2 etc until all 5 holes are there. The posts are then painted a concrete colour. The wire is from a 7 strand cable and each is 0.010mm copper, but as it is tinned, it ends up as 0.012mm for a single strand. Tinned copper at least looks like the right colour for steel prototype wire. (RS Components 874-0374 hook up wire). I cut a length of the cable, strip the insulation and separate the strands. I plant the posts in position using a height jig made from card and a distance jig. Once planted, the wire is threaded. A little superglue in the post at one end allows a small amount of tension to be applied before more superglue is applied at the other end of the run. So it is about as close to scale as I could get and so far seems to be holding up. It is fine enough to disappear at some angles and yet be in place when studied closely. I completely see why people leave out wires (I still have to leave them off telegraph posts!) but this was fine enough and controllable enough for me to justify the effort of putting the wire in. Nigel

A quick update on a unique item seen on the prototype. Trains in the Dolgellau-Bala direction would drop off tokens on the standard tablet catcher apparatus and that has been on the layout since the first show. But with the river directly behind that and a few instances of tablets falling in it, a larger net was added behind to prevent losses. The net is made from lint netting, but with the threads shuffled around to make the holes much smaller. This is done on a card frame surrounded by double-sided tape and the threads moved using tweezers. Once happy with the spacing being appropriate and replicating a cargo net, matt black aerosol spray is used before cutting to size. The white frame is simply plasticard square rod and sheet with a 0.2mm bar threaded through the top as support for the net. It still needs weathering , but looks the part and should keep the local experts happy at the Bala show in September. For me, this is one of the beauties of modelling a prototype. The mindset is not "what should go there to make it look realistic?" to "how do I make that so it matches the prototype?" It is a different discipline, but rewarding when it is right. I have also added the "beware of trains" signs at the end of the platforms, so another detail spotted by helpful show-goers has been done. Nigel

Thanks both, It is very awkward to get the data on the Bachman supplied chips and the Zimo site is currently unavailable. This is not a sound chip and has those pads in the picture, but possibly for something else. Either way a hard wire seems the logical choice with a suitable chip. Having removed the speaker, there is plenty of room for the tantalums I have already.

The Bachmann/Zimo 36-567A chip clearly has solder pads on its top side ready to accept a stay alive. However, when checking the Zimo instruction sheet, only the underside of the chip is shown, so no indications as to which pad is which for connecting a stay-alive. Can anyone advise?