Beardybloke

Well, this has made me dig out the RMweb login for the first time in a while! No NG modelling update from me at the moment though I'm afraid - the mojo has taken a bit of a hit which I'm trying to resolve with some aircraft modelling, and sorting the house out enough that there's space in the garage for an actual layout for the first time ever...

They're cosmetic wheels, included with the kit, and are araldited to the inside of the frames, with careful checking that it's not going to short out hence the flats! As the clearances are rather on the small side there are issues with having a functioning front pony truck on much less than scale curves - the Backwoods version calls for some rather ugly cut-outs on the frames. As it stands, the chassis is supposed to be able to negotiate 12" radius curves. Once the layout is wired up properly I'll be doing some testing... Sorry for the delayed reply, I've not been on here much of late - too many other things to do!

With a substantially complete locomotive now on the workbench we now reach the point where I usually stall on the build and Linda has been no exception. I have several excuses (and excuses they are), but the main two being demands on my time from elsewhere and a pause whilst I evaluated some Microtrains couplers for their suitability. For ‘evaluated’ read ‘tried to get the infernal bloody things to work’ as the two bogies that I bought didn’t seem to want to uncouple with any of the magnets that I tried. Ah well, I’ve got a little more time available now and some of the actual Microtrains magnets rather than random others, so I might continue the experiments. Possibly with a hammer, if the frustration continues… As I mentioned in Linda’s previous instalment, the replacement backhead arrived promptly and was thinned out to fit over the flywheel and soldered in place – I really can’t fault Parkside Dundas’ service one bit! With this fitted my attention turned to adding the detail – which, in my opinion, can mean the difference between a good model that’s got all of the right bits in the right places, and one that actually looks like a miniature version of the real thing – to date, I’ve not managed the latter on anything that I’ve built so far, but I live in hope. I reckon that the parts provided for the cab fittings would be perfectly adequate to represent the loco in as-built condition (i.e. coal fired and not vacuum fitted) and would probably do for Blanche with her smaller cab opening from 1970 onwards, but I seem to have become something of a perfectionist – even though I probably don’t have the skills to be – so I decided to try to make the best representation that I could from bits of scrap plasticard and brass (I might be in a southern exile, but I’ve still got northern blood!) The backhead, made up as per the instructions, can be seen below: With a few photos discovered on Flickr that showed a good amount of the cab detail from a couple of angles, I made a start – not on the cab though, because the sheer volume of pipework and valves is rather daunting, especially compared with what’s provided in the kit. Simpler things were in order first; so the handrails and vac pipe that runs along the tank from cab to smokebox were araldited in place with the pipe requiring a chunk to be taken out of the sandbox. True to form I, of course, took a chunk out in the wrong place to start with which necessitated the judicious use of a spot of filler to hide… hopefully it’ll look okay once it’s painted! A fine piece of rod was also used to replace the rather chunky whitemetal protrusions atop the sandboxes and the linkage that runs between them – part of the operating gear for them, I presume. Eventually, I couldn’t put it off any longer (God only knows I tried) and had to make a start on the cab fittings. Despite the multitude of photos, I still couldn’t quite work out in my head where everything went or, indeed, what connected to what! A couple of sketches were in order, and I managed to produce a passable representation of a vacuum ejector and the mass of pipework on the opposite side of the cab. Passable if you’re moving past it at about 40mph, anyway. The safety valve assembly on the firebox was drilled to take some of the remaining assemblies, and some very rough valve wheels were made up by cutting some squares from 10thou plasticard and rounding them off. The results (along with the cabsides and steps fixed in place and a little excess araldite) can be seen below: Subsequent to this photo, I also got around to adding the small table to the left of the firebox – I’ll have to get around to making a 4mm scale oil can and mug of tea to go with it! The next step was the injector pipework and the mere thought of attempting this put me off for some time once again – I’d apply for membership of the Procrastinator’s Society but I never seem to get around to doing it – so instead, I soldered up some cylinder drains – I’ve not got around to fitting these yet as I found them so insanely fiddly that the injector pipework seemed like it would be a breeze in comparison. How wrong could I be! Close-up photos of the pipework were singularly lacking and many of the available shots showed the pipework wreathed in steam. Very atmospheric but not, unfortunately, much cop for using as a template. After a trip to the FR on the ‘Back to Blaenau’ weekend, I found Blanche sat in the spare platform at Blaenau Ffestiniog, having recreated the buffer stop delivery that came into the station alongside BR’s inaugural train back in 1982. Clearly not an opportunity to be missed, I started snapping away like the tourist that I was and despite the funny looks, came back with some decent photos of the injector pipework. A comparison with the available photos of Linda in her current form showed that the pipework seemed near enough identical, and so I had a working diagram at last – or at least the next best thing. I never got a chance to take similar photos of Linda herself as the only time that I saw her was taking on water at Porthmadog… some decent photos of the backhead, lubricator, cylinder drains and whistle mounts were forthcoming though! The first port of call was to add the tankside steps on both sides, as this would give me a datum point to work to as well as a sneaky place to which I could attach the pipes if necessary. Bit-by-bit, the pipes were built up and test fitted individually and tailored to fit the location, and a thinner bit of brass rod added to represent the control lever. It’s not perfect, but I reckon that a bit of paint (and possibly a coat of superglue to thicken the central part) will hide a multitude of sins. The current state of affairs is shown below, including the new table on the firebox. In an ideal world, I'd have made the pipework removable to make painting that much easier, but it's too late now. Also, having seen the regulator handle in the Brian Madge Alice-class Hunslet kit, I may have to replace the rod with something more accurate: Next steps are to attach the cylinder drains and sort the whistle mount… and try to get the lubricator made. I’ve attempted the latter twice so far, and if it’s sturdy enough to survive it looks nothing like the real thing, and if it looks like the real thing it disintegrates if I look at it askance. Ah well, time to stop procrastinating and get on with it (yeah, right!). Lesson for today? Plan ahead, as I reckon that that pipework is going to be a sod to paint...

I've been rather busy over the last few months so I missed the second half of this thread... very nice Simplex, carriages and hearse van, Andy... I may have to try some of these when I clear my workbench a little more!

Thanks J It's on a Fleischmann 0-4-0 chassis (I couldn't tell you which one - it's whichever one the FR shop sold circa March/April 2008!) The progress isn't just to clear the decks for Brian's Hunslet - I've been frustrated by my lack of progress due to other constraints for a while. It's definitely part of it though, as my other half won't let me start anything new until I've finished what I've got!

Very nice work Frank - to me, it's the little details like this that really make a model. Probably why I never finish anything!

The drawings that I have show Taliesin as 22' 3.5" over buffer faces and Moel Tryfan as approx 21' 5" over the same - so pretty close. Both are 6' 8" wide. MT is 8' 9" from rail top to chimney, but Tal is only 8'. In short, they're pretty close, but it's worth noting that as the drawings that I've got are of the 1999-built Taliesin, it's to be expected that the loco will be somewhat bigger as I believe that it was built at around 13" to 1' scale! I've seen models made of Taliesin using the Chivers NWNGR kit as the basis, so it's certainly feasible. If that's what you have in mind, I'd advise getting hold of a copy of the drawings and overlaying them to see where the differences are - what you can live with, and what you'll need to modify.

It seems that nothing is ever finished. The Langley ‘Prince’ that was the second working loco on Hafod Las (and the only reliable one) has been back in the workshops. By this stage in its life, Prince has had 3 different coupling types fitted – Bemo, MSE/Sprat & Winkle and most recently Microtrains – but has otherwise remained unmodified and untouched since the final shovel-load of paint was applied back in 2008. I finally seem to have managed to get the Microtrains couplers to function (mainly by using the magnets actually intended for the system) and have built up a coupling height gauge – I’m not using the recommended mounting height as I needed to account for the height of Linda’s bufferbeam, so the proprietary version is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard – and have fixed it to a short length of track fixed to some plywood. A view of the height gauge along with an FR bug box can be seen below: However, the modification to the loco to fit the new couplers (specifically the removal of the wires for the S&W couplings) saw some cosmetic damage to the tender in the form of paint flaking off and structural damage to the front of the loco, knocking off the vacuum pipe and dislodging the footplate. I could have patch-painted the tender and probably re-glued and touched up the footplate but I probably wouldn’t have been happy with this – another factor being that, foolishly, I didn’t prime the loco when I first painted it hence the propensity of the paint to flake off in bloody great big bits. With this in mind, I donned the hair shirt and started stripping the loco. As always with Beardybloke projects, nothing is ever simple. As the loco was originally assembled with superglue (if it had been soldered, it would inevitably have ended up as a rapidly-cooling heap of metal on the workbench) I was more than a little reluctant to apply any form of chemical paint stripper to it lest it be reduced to its component parts. There are obviously several problems with manual stripping – namely in this case gouge marks (mostly shallow, admittedly) from the small jeweller’s screwdriver and craft knife used to strip the paint, and small bits of paint stubbornly refusing to leave even with the most blatant of hints. After tidying with a fibreglass scratch pen the most obvious missing chunks were filled, particularly areas where the filler from the original build had inadvertently been removed, sanded back and a coating of primer applied. Unsurprisingly a number of imperfections were still clearly visible and several iterations of this process ensued, including the removal of the handrails and filling of the holes for subsequent replacement with less oversized components. During this process the vacuum pipe was also araldited back in place 3 times and the footplate / chassis assembly glued to the chassis – if it ever needs removing, it’ll take a little bit of force to do so! Coupling mountings were built up to the appropriate height, and the tender has also been retrofitted with brass pinpoint bearings to ensure free running over the long term. In general, the weather has been slowing the rebuild process down quite significantly as high winds or rain prevent any spraypainting from being carried out – and as a small job it’s all being done by aerosol as I’m too lazy to keep cleaning the airbrush, though the matt varnish will be airbrushed on. Handrails, transfers and a coal load (the latter two absent from the model previously) were all added and the two gold-painted whitemetal whistles replaced with Springside variants. These don’t appear to be exact matches to any known prototype carried on the FR, but given that a significant proportion of the brass components were *ahem* acquired by collectors during the years of closure, who’s to say what would have been used to re-equip the loco in my alternative universe? Finally, the new nameplates and worksplates from Narrow Planet were fitted (with the latter requiring some tweaking to the cabside lining) – from the photo below, you may also notice that Prince has had a sex change! The numbers on the rear of the tender are a little high, but as I was running out of bits of the HMRS BR loco and coach numbering sheets to cut out, I decided to leave it at that! By way of comparison, I have included a photo of Prince as-was, in pre-cosmetic restoration state below: Unnecessary? Perhaps, but I’m a lot happier with the model now, and I think that I can actually call it finished - or will be able to do so after the spectacle plates and sandpot/cabside handrail knobs have been touched up in gold and a few bits of black touched up, followed by a final coat of matt varnish to seal the transfers and tone down the finish (and fitted a coupling to the front too). A couple of lessons learned for the future though – don’t take shortcuts by not priming, or by not filling, filing and fettling properly – you’ll only regret it later down the line. I must admit to being better disciplined at this by now (to the unending frustration of my other half who has yet to see me finish a kit) but the temptation still remains to take the quick fix bodge route as previously!

No, the front wheels are purely cosmetic - because of this I've filed the flanges back slightly to give a finer appearance, but because they're whitemetal fixed to a nickel chassis, I've had to be very careful that they don't short on the track. I'll probably find that they do when I test it properly!

It looks great, Frank - it's really come on since I last had the chance to catch up on your blog!

With a number of other commitments being a serious impediment to progress, now seems to be a good time to rewrite history, geography, economics and quite possibly geology. Numerous plans and attempts were made over the years to create a 2ft gauge railway network in North Wales, largely inspired by the phenomenal success of the Ffestiniog Railway once steam locomotives were introduced. The most famous of these would, I suspect, be the NWNGR line from Dinas to Rhyd Ddu and Bryngwyn which eventually formed part of the Welsh Highland Railway - but what many people aren't aware of is that there were several other lines planned - from Portmadoc to Betws-y-Coed via Beddgelert and Capel Curig, as well as a line to Porth Dinallaen which was intended to share the Cambrian Line from Portmadoc to Pwhelli by laying a third rail! Other railways in the area which existed from time-to-time were the Croesor tramway (part of which was eventually absorbed into the WHR) and the Gorseddau Railway, which was defunct by the early 1890s. With the lack of success from the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways, other companies took on the mantle of connecting the various towns and villages in North Wales - all unsuccessfully, with most not getting beyond the planning stages. The most famous relic of these attempts is the 'Bridge to Nowhere' on the A498 from Porthmadog to Beddgelert, produced by the failed Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway plan to link Beddgelert and the quarries in Nant Gwynant with Portmadoc, and not used for the WHR route as, being intended for electric traction, the gradients and curvature were far too severe for steam-hauled trains to handle. At least one other proposal that I'm aware of was made to construct a line to Betws-y-Coed by the Snowdon and Betws-y-Coed Light Railway, also running up Nant Gwynant - various methods of beating the gradients at the north eastern end of the valley including a series of switchbacks or a series of reverse curves. I've also been reliably informed that the NWNGR had some 1 in 14 gradients planned on the route! So where does Hafod Las fit into all of this? A number of (probably fairly wild) assumptions have been made to justify the existence of both a substantial quarry workshop complex and a comparatively busy main line serving the area - the major assumption being that one of the railways to Betws-y-Coed succeeded in being built in the first place! The quarry side remains loosely based on the Hafod Las Quarry south of Pentre Du, a small hamlet about a mile to the west of Betws-y-Coed. The quarry itself produced slates and slabs and as far as I'm aware was quite a small concern, but with a fairly substantially-built half-mile long tramway (mostly double tracked incline) taking the slates down to the Holyhead Road (the A5) and thence to the LNWR in Betws for onward shipment. The quarry was open from c.1862 to c.1927, employing an average of 15 people and producing 3000 tons of slates and slab per annum as of 1900. It went through a variety of leaseholders (including one James Swinton Spooner, brother of Charles Easton) and closed down a number of times over the years. I'm not sure whether the quarry's lack of success was due to poor transport links, poor rock quality or a combination of the two, but the completion of the NWNGR line to Betws removes one obstacle and my flagrant disregard for geology removes the other - in my world, the quarry was successful enough to warrant a couple of locomotives and a not-unreasonably-sized workshop capable of rolling stock construction and repairs and fairly heavy servicing of locomotives. The size of the locomotive fleet and workshop complex is far smaller than those at Penrhyn, Dinorwic or most of the Blaenau quarries, but I suspect that something in the vein of the Nantlle quarries (such as the Dorothea and Cilgwyn quarries) which between them had a number of locomotives isn't too great a jump with the assumptions that I've made. The location of the quarry can be seen on the OS Map at grid SH 780 560: The original intention for the location of the station was in the hamlet of Pentre Du, possibly sandwiched between the road and the houses - a coaching inn would have probably been added close to the station as well as the junction having a nominal mainline and quarry connection (which would obviously be reversed depending upon which configuration the layout was operating in). There would have been a stone-built station building and goods shed which coupled with the pub adjacent to the station site would have been rather reminiscent of Waenfawr. However, I liked the idea of the river running under the railway and with the Afon Llugwy running parallel to and some distance below the railway, I didn't think that I could stretch modeller's licence that far and still justify claiming the station's location to be Pentre Du - it may just be that I'm far too picky - so, an alternative location was sought. Potentially, the station could sit anywhere along the proposed lines near to a centre of population, such as they are in the area, but I thought that it would be rather neater if it was close to the quarries in the Llugwy valley so that I could tie in the traffic and timetabling - for my own amusement as much as anything else. I took a wander up and down the line (figuratively speaking) on an OS Map and Capel Curig jumped out at me as a suitable location for a station; with a river for the railway to cross, a road to cross the railway and river and run behind the two, and some interesting buildings in the area - a church, Pinnacle Stores, a couple of terraces and an outdoor shop that looks (thanks to the sign outside it) very much like it used to be a pub. It sounds like a pastiche, but it's all there and conveniently all on the far side of the road to the railway except for the church, as can be seen below, with the station site overlaid: A very good photo of the area in the 1890s can be found here (unfortunately copyrighted) - my version of history would have the railway passing down the right hand side of Llynnau Mymbyr roughly parallel to the road (using earthworks where necessary to keep the gradients workable) and would swing around the hill in the centre ground, under the road (carried on a higher bridge than exists), cross the river at quite ab oblique angle and into the station, in the field behind the chapel nearest to the camera. The Pinnacle Stores are on the right next to the road, and the white building to the left of the hill is what is now the Plas-y-Brenin centre but was, at the time, a hotel. Very Freezer-esque! I wonder how many people will think that I've made a train set, as it certainly seems to have all of the required features for one... This choice of location isn't without its issues. I have been told that the station was intended to be some way south of the village and the line was to follow the road to the south of the rock outcrop by the Plas-y-Brenin centre rather than the route that I've chosen to tie in with the road/rail/river plan on the baseboards. The severe gradients, especially coming up from Nant Gwynant, would probably have limited through traffic from Beddgelert quite severely and I wouldn't expect to see any goods traffic being hauled up that hill when it could come up from Betws instead, and when production from the copper mine and quarries in the Gwynant valley could be hauled for onward shipment via Beddgelert. Both of the above were, I believe, in no small part due to the need to keep as far away from the Swallow Falls as possible due to a recalcitrant landowner. The negative points covered, there are some positives from an operating point of view - there would be a reasonable local goods traffic bringing in merchandise and produce for the local hostelries and stores, and who's to say that the area wouldn't have developed further with the rail connection and consequent expansion of the quarries? There's also a forestry plantation reasonably close to the village (though I'm not sure when that came into being) and the Moel Siabod quarries a couple of miles away, providing goods traffic for the station. By contriving a particular junction arrangement at the quarry (possibly for land availabiltiy reasons) there could be a requirement for haulage to Capel for full and empty goods stock, to be run-round and depart in the same direction from whence it arrived. Depending on what sort of level of output I gave the quarry, this could also generate a requirement for a specific workmens' train (shedded at Capel overnight) and indeed a local shunter to run minerals, empties and general freight to and from the quarry junction at Pont Cyfyng (not shown on the map, but the branch would lead off to the south-west from a junction near the bridge): (The 1:25,000 map shows the station more than a little over scale and shows the line crossing the river (and would have to do so twice) rather than contouring around, but between the two images and allowing for modeller's licence and a bit of selective compression to bring the stores and road junction closer to the station, you should hopefully be able to get the idea) So, with history re-written to contain a rail link from Portmadoc and Caernarfon to Betws-y-Coed (and hence Corwen, who knows?) and some rather productive quarries and mines in the locale, Hafod Las Mk. III now has a raison d'etre. Of course, for neatness and considering the relative size of the concerns, the quarry workshop should probably be a part of the Moel Siabod complex, but I've grown rather attached to the name by now! What have I learned this time? Sometimes life looks like a train set, and I think that I'm being haunted by Cyril Freezer...

Thanks gents! J - I've not built anything specifically in place for the legs yet, but I'm working on the idea of fabricating a couple of slots on the underside that the legs will slot into - either that, or put the layout on trestles. I have learnt from my last attempt, as I actually thought about it beforehand! Frank - I've noticed that Wickes seem to be better, so I'll be using them in future I suspect... though the Orange one isn't too bad if you can spend the time trying to find straight bits...

Looks very good, J! Why the need for the big hand in the sky - dirty rails or wheels? (I know that I had that problem when I tested the first side of mine the other week) Looking forward to seeing the scenics progress - it's the bit that I'm not really looking forward to as I've never actually got that far on a layout before...

Quicker as it would be to simply buy a job lot of flexitrack and run it on the floor, I don’t think that I would receive a great deal of my rental deposit back once I de-ballasted and lifted the track from the carpet when I move out. So, with the safety of my deposit and the longevity of locomotive mechanisms when carpet fibres are concerned in mind, I decided that some baseboards may come in handy. With a track plan and dimensions to hand, the next stage involved much scribbling and estimation in the back of a work notebook in order to arrive at the total length of softwood and plywood required for the baseboard framing. After taking into account the surviving wood from the demolition of HL2, I took a wander to a certain orange DIY store in the company of a helpful friend with a far bigger car than mine… and after some time, managed to find sufficient straight bits of wood to make up the boards. (Having discovered that I was one length short some time later, after relying on a piece intended for the unbuilt fiddle yard for HL2 which turned out to be propeller shaped, I looked at over a dozen lengths of 2x1 until I found a piece that was actually true) I won’t send you to sleep with the details, but the boards were of conventional construction with a lap joint screwed and glued at each corner and a cross brace in the middle placed to avoid being in the way of the point motors – even so, I still needed to chisel away one of the end pieces later on once the track had been laid (on an inter-board joint) in order to fit the point motor in place. Oops! Diagonal bracing was added in the same way, with one piece being lower than the others to form the support for the riverbed. The boards at this stage can be seen below: With the boards intended to be fitted together in multiple ways, a reliable method of precisely locating the baseboards was sought – Station Road Baseboards provided the solution with their 'bullet-type' locating dowels (I couldn’t afford the number of pattern makers’ dowels that I would require – 12 in all!) and some 8mm diameter coach bolts with wingnuts. These are far better than my previous attempt on HL2 which used cheap wooden dowels and smaller bolts with conventional nuts, so once again, I have demonstrated an ability to learn from my cock-ups… it’s the one good thing that can be said for my multiple model railway disasters over the years! I made the decision to fit integral plywood backscenes up to full height to start with, with an eye to possibly cutting them down to match the terrain in the future. The important part was to ensure that a flat, square surface for mating the boards together was available and bitter past experience has taught me that I really couldn’t rely on the softwood to do that. The same was done on the inter-board joints on each scenic side (though far shorter and below track level, obviously!) The boards were clamped together in turn and drilled for both locating dowels and securing bolts, with the 4 boards comfortably fitting together in both configurations. Copper clad board was cut and glue-gunned into place at the board edges on the curve to use as a starting point and tracklaying commenced from there. Again, the decision to use PCB sleepers (albeit oversized) is another thing that I learned from experience on HL2 along with trimming the rails back sufficiently to make sure that they don’t catch on anything! All rail sections have a separate feed to them (or in a couple of cases of very short lengths are soldered directly together) as I’m not a fan of relying on fishplates for electrical conductivity. At this stage, no decision had been made on couplers (and they’re still being evaluated) so the track was pinned down and the pins left unbent underneath the layout to facilitate the later lifting if it becomes necessary to fit magnets. Tracklaying progressed quite rapidly, apart from a brief pause to lift a ‘Y’ point and replace it with a RH version to eliminate a dogleg and reverse curve in the goods yard of the station. A couple of the sidings have been left with very rough ends as I’m not sure about fitting wagon turntables in a couple of places yet. Point motors were fitted underneath – mostly Peco as that’s what I’ve standardised on, for good or bad, but a couple of old Hornby ones from my abandoned teenage standard gauge layout have found their way onto the junction points. Polarity switching is provided by the same microswitch method as used on HL2 but with the wooden supports cut to the right height this time rather than bodged with cardboard – see below for the original version from HL2 to get the idea (and once again, I've plagiarised it, and I'm afraid that I can't for the life of me remember who from to thank them – I think that it was on RMweb3). Isolating sections have been fitted to the two arms of the junctions so that the one not in use can be used as a siding if necessary, though some blanking plates for the holes in the backscene may be in order to prevent rogue rolling stock from attempting flight – my Double Fairlie has already tried it once, with limited success… Below can be seen the station side of the layout with track laid and all droppers fitted underneath – the white patches that may be seen are sticky labels that are patching the point rodding and wire dropper holes that remain from the aforementioned de-doglegging. Some spare stock – a Langley FR Bowsider running on Parkside bogies and a Parkside GVT-style van – were both used for checking the rail joints and clearance on the points as some of the older Peco 009 points (though not the new mainline ones) require some modifications and fettling to the frogs, flangeways and check rails to ensure reliable running. This process hasn’t quite been completed yet, but will certainly be required before any significant running takes place… You might also notice from the photos that the extra spur running off the front of the boards on the plan doesn't exist on the layout as built - both were deleted as superfluous, especially at £10 per point! So, with the track laid and mostly wired up (if not to board connectors and switches) I am now nearly at the same stage as HL2 was prior to demolition, but with a much better-constructed set of baseboards and no requirement for a fiddleyard board to make it useable – learning from my mistakes and others’ recommendations (usually after I’d already done it wrong) was rather helpful – the next stage is to finish the wiring and do a bit of test running. Hopefully when I’ve got it all running, I won’t then pause for two years whilst I just play trains!

Looks very good, Frank - I've just acquired some hanging basket liner on the cheap so will be experimenting with that... having seen the Silfor tufts in place too, I might have to give some of those a go for the wilder bits of the station area on my layout!