Ffarquhar Branch MrkII

[WhitehouseFilms]

Many would have seen my replica of MrkI. It was a fine model to work on and provided me with new ideas and also the chance to try out new methods which proved to be quite useful. But during an event last year, something came to mind. The event I was at was a 'Small projects' event that my miniature railway club was holding and quite a few of us had 00 model trains to show. One member had his Hornby Live steam set up and running. Unfortunately I couldn't bring my current Ffarquhar layout to this event for it required a van to take it over so I only had the engines on static display. Then I thought, wouldn't it be fun to have a replica of Ffarquhar MrkII to bring to these sort of events? That way I can show the models performing while showing them. But then I thought, I can't really build a replica of that layout incase anyone would think it was the real one. After a while I let that idea be but upon my last visit to Wales and seeing the original layout again, the bug bit hard.

So I decided to at least give it a go. But for 2 reasons. 

1. This was to be my final model of the Ffarquhar Branch 
2. I will only show this layout at club gatherings and NOT to take to model railway exhibitions incase it gets mistaken for the real one.

History of the layout.

In the late 1960's, the Rev W Awdry moved to Stroud but upon moving in, found there to be a problem. The designated room that was to be his model railway room didn't provide much space for both his Ffarquhar Branch layout, himself and visitors to come in and see it. So after the layout's last showing in 1967, it was dismantled and rebuilt into Ffarquhar MrkII. The layout first exhibited in 1972 and continued to do so until the late 1980's. After which, the layout was stored in Stroud till the passing of the Reverend Awdry in 1997. It, the locos, rolling stock and items from the Reverend's study were donated to the Talyllyn Railway in Wales, where a replica display of the the Reverend's study and is to this day, the layout's new home.

On special occasions the layout comes out of display and is operated by volunteers of the railway and in 2008, by means of a special request, it was transported to Northern Ireland to take part in the Friends of Cultra Model Railway Show.

The Plan
The plan of the layout is designed to go in an L shape. The main feature, the station, is mostly seen set up at shows. Originally the plan was to include a second station, Elsbridge, but this wasn't built so it was left to have the trains leaving the station and travelling through countryside before arriving at the fiddle yards. the plan was also so that it can be transported in the boot of a car and easy to set up by 1 person. MrkI required 2 people and a van to transport it.

My Replica
When I began modelling the Reverend Awdry's layout, I set my self a rule that I wouldn't make a replica of a layout that still exists incase it gets mistaken for the real thing. I've had some friends asking if I was thinking of trying it out and I very much nearly did at one stage in 2012, but that layout wasn't really a proper replica. After my last visit to Wales to see the layout, I thought that I suppose I could replicate it, but only show it at private events and not at public shows. Those sort of events will only be for my MrkI replica. 
So with that noted I slowly planned out what was needed to build the layout. The first thing was to know the size of the original. When you look at photos of the layout online you'd think it would be roughly a width of 2ft. But when I saw the layout again in 2016, I was surprised at how small it actually is at a width of 1ft 6inches. I will see over the coming months/years to replicate the original layout but also built the Elsbridge section which, as mentioned, never got built. A plan of the original plan can be seen in Railway Modeller January 1968. 

My plan for the replica 
Baseboard measurements not finalised yet.

Folding baseboard plan

Like with the original, this layout will be made to fold into a box for easy transportation. Where the hinges are will be hidden by removable buildings.

Over the last few months, I have been slowly gathering the essential items to build the layout and just need to get the 9mm plywood to begin the build of the baseboards.

I will be covering the build here and hope my methods would be of any use to fellow modellers here.

 

[WhitehouseFilms]

Ok folks, Ffarquhar MrkII replica's build has commenced. 

Yesterday I began on making up the two baseboards for the main station area. The fiddle yard will be built once I get more timber bought but for now we'll focus on the station section. 

Now the timber has warped slightly during storage so I've clamped the two boards with each other to try and straighten them out. I've read that hot water works for helping straightening wood so I might give the two boards a going over before I put the top service on. 

Like with the original, the two boards are concerned together using the box hinge method. The original pin for the hinges has been removed and a new one, made from a masonry nail, is put in. This gives a good strong connection between the two boards so there will be no trouble of the two boards separating.

But with this installed means I'll have to scrap the original idea of having the two boards hinged so that it can fold up. Thats no bother really but I will need to see what to do to keep the boards together when folded. Perhaps there was another set of hinge locks for this? Who knows. 

Will have more progress on this build later in the month. 

Edited November 4, 2018 by WhitehouseFilms

[WhitehouseFilms]

Right so apologies for lack of updates. So what way are we with Ffarquhar Mark II?

So in the last post I showed that the two board frames were now made up and ready for the top surface. Like with the original, the top surface was made using hardboard. Now this will sound odd as hard board is mainly used for back scenes and not the best material for a top surface board. But seeing as these boards are on the small side and are well braced, this wouldn't be an issue. With the hardboard on I had to put down a soft surface to allow the track pins to go into to. The Talyllyn railway were generous enough on this side by providing some information on how the layout was made and it is revealed that the 2nd top surface was layers of pulp board. Before hand I did a small test to get an idea on how many layers of the stuff was needed. $ layers proved to be enough and so I ordered around 40 sheets and began gluing down the first layer. Now I'd like to skip this bit of the build, but it must be addressed if anyone is wanting to go for the original methods. To stick the first layer down, I used UHU glue. What I didn't know at the time was that the tube I used to stick it down was the only one I had left and sticking the first layer down pretty much used it all up. So what could I do?. The shops were closed and I needed to get the boards stuck down in order to get to the next stage. Now next to me, while I was gluing the boards down, was a bootle of PVA glue. the same glue I used to strengthen the frames of the boards. I wasn't sure if it would work or not but something inside me urged me to use it instead. Now what I forgotten was that PVA is a water based product and pulp board is a card based product. My friend Knuckles can relate with me as to what happened when I went to check on the boards the next morning. Each separate sheet of pulp board had a bowed warp in the middle and there was no hopes of levelling it out smoothly. So I had to remove every bit of board, including the ones I stuck down with UHU, sand it back to the hardboard and start all over again only this time glue it down with UHU glue, which I managed to get more tubes of the next time I was in town. A day later, the two boards soon had the pulp boards glued on top. I also decided to attached some extra bits of 2x1 timber which will support the boards tower once they are packed up into a box. But there was one bit that was still bothering me and that was joining the boards together. Now I did say that I had modified a box hinge to ensure a strong alignment was made to the boards but the trouble of putting the pin back into the hinge was quite troublesome and so I decided to scrap this method and instead use some box clamps, Same ones I used for connecting the boards on the Mark I replica. This made things much easier and connecting and disconnecting the boards was far more easier to do. So now came the first stages on laying the track. 

 

Like with my Ffarquhar Mark I, I printed out a 1x1 scale track plan of the track layout and laid it out on top of the boards. At first I was worried incase I didn't get the right measurements for the boards. but thankfully after a few slight trims from areas in the plan that weren't essential, The plan fitted snuggly into place and that was then I knew I got it right. On the original, the track was mostly laid on a strip of specially grooved cork which had the sleepers already fitted so all that was needed was to spike in the rails to the correct gauge and that was that. I decided instead to keep to what I know best and used Noch cork underlay and PECO streamline & Set track. The track plan was copied on to the board with carbon tracing paper and the cork was glued in place with UHU as with the pulp boards. Now this is where I leave it for the time being because as you all know by now, there is another railway which I'm also working on and quite a bit of my time is focusing on keeping it running as best as I could so I'll leave this update with a current photo of the layout in it's current appearance. Till next time.

 

[WhitehouseFilms]

I'd better share an update regarding this layout. 

It has been a few years now since I made this thread, and during then there has been small updates to the layout which soon lead to it's downfall and where it is now. 

In my last post, the layout was going through it's stages of having it's track laid. So far things were looking promising, but there were some issues that I was having that made things difficult when constructing the layout. the first was of corse the pulp board that was being used for the layout's top surface. To be perfectly honest, I never was impressed by the way it was applied and I'm sure the Reverend W Awdry had good intensions of using it for his layout, but there were areas that were left bowed or sagged which could affect running. The other issues I had was the connecting plugs I had used to transfer power from the point motors to the control panel over the baseboard joint. My forgetfulness resulted in me fixing these connectors, with panel pins, to the frame of the layout which made it difficult to set up on a flat surface. In the end, the layout sat dormant at the end of my workshop till I came upon it when I was clearing out the workshop to a new location and decided to look at it again. During that time, I was looking over various examples of folding baseboards and thought maybe it would be worth starting this project over again only this time, fixing a few areas. 

 

The new baseboard will start off the same construction as before, 2x1timber with hardboard top. The hinged supports and back scene boards will then be made next before the top layer of fibre board underlay will be placed on top. I had used this stuff before in the past and it held up pretty well. On another note, a friend at the NGRM sent me a photo of the extension boards of the original layout and they do reveal that fibre board was used on top of the hardboard, so at least this is also staying true to original methods. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get the materials to make the baseboards tomorrow in B&Q. In the mean time watch this space. 

[WhitehouseFilms]

It has been quite a while since I've posted in this topic and fell now is the time to give you all an update. Recently my time has been busy focussing on the building of my club's replica of the reverend Awdry's North Western layout, which is another thread I'll have to update one day as there is so much to discuss. But while the NWR was the main focus, my mind casted back to when I tried to make Ffarquhar MrkII and my inspiration to return to this project would happen. I can honestly say it has. Last year the Talyllyn Railway held a special weekend event called The Awdry Extravaganza where it was the first time to two remaining layouts of the Rev Awdry, Ffarquhar and Mid Sodor, first appeared next to each other in over 20 years. I was down for that weekend and ended up helping the team with the operation of Ffarquhar. It was such an experience that my passion to make this layout again was slowly returning. I took plenty of photos of the layout to ensure I knew what was what and how a certain section was built. There are still things within the Reverend's modelling that still amazes me. 

So it's with great joy that I announce that this project is resuming once more. 

Pictures of the build will be posted very soon, but first I want to get the layout to a suitable stage before I'm ready to share anything. There is still a lot more that needs to be built in terms of the baseboard construction. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by WhitehouseFilms

[WhitehouseFilms]

Some time has passed so here are the construction process of the new layout build. 

Starting off fresh, I began making up the baseboards. I was lucky enough to measure the boards on the original layout as well as the timber that was used to make the frame works. 

The frameworks are 36x18mm timber to which 9mm MDF is glue & screwed on top. Originally I was planning on using plywood, but MDF was more affordable and easier to cut. A primer paint was applied on the top surface to ensure paint and glue stick to the boards without getting absorbed. 2 coats were enough, though it nearly finished the tin and I'll have to see about getting maybe 2 more tins from the store to do the other sections of the layout. Oh no, it's not just Ffarquhar that's getting built here. Another layout is being made to join up with this. Anyways, some box clamps were fitted to the sides to secure each board together and some hinges were added to some square blocks which will fold the layout up when being transported or for easy storage. A bit of 12mm MDF was added to the end for the board to sit on when folded. 

Bilteezi Backscenes will be put on order soon so that I can get the rest of the board made up and finished. Trackwork will soon follow which is the stage I find most enjoyable. 

Edited October 2, 2022 by WhitehouseFilms

[Nearholmer]

Watching with interest.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Mk1, so this too should be a treat, although the original Mk2 wasn’t really a layout that ‘did it for me’ in the way that the original Mk1 did.

[WhitehouseFilms]

6 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Watching with interest.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Mk1, so this too should be a treat, although the original Mk2 wasn’t really a layout that ‘did it for me’ in the way that the original Mk1 did.

I think it was the downsize it went through when it was rebuilt. I've read that the layout was meant to have a bigger section to have more countryside and of course the passing station Elsbridge, but sadly that never came to be. It did have the scenic extension added for large exhibitions. But yeah there was something about MrkI that gave it more charm. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by WhitehouseFilms

[WhitehouseFilms]

Peco streamline track has been ordered with the inclusion of electrofrog points for the smaller wheelbase engines. This will be the first time I've used electrofrog points which I hope will continue on using once I have everything understood. Just the accessory switches are needed for the points and we'll be in business. Of corse, I'll have to start with Ffarquhar with it being the terminus end of the branch line before continuing to Elsbridge. However, Elsbridge has been giving me some thought in regards to an operation programme to co work with the one for Ffarquhar. A 3 stage sequence has been written out which will see the workings of a day's work, which I hope to do a video covering it one day. 

Another item of Elsbridge is the river bridge that crosses the River Els. Originally I had a 3d print of the bridge made, but the print didn't look all that right to me so I decided to see what kit bashing could do.

 

According the the IOS: It's People, History and Railways, the bridge isn't that big compared to how you see it in the books and so a smaller model would have to be made. When making the baseboards for Elsbridge, I used the Hornby Viaduct as a reference model for size and as you can see the model fits fine in the bridge's section. 

However, the appearance is all wrong for the bridge is a show piece to show the strength of the stone from the quarries at Anopha, whereas the Hornby model is brick built and the arches are not the right size. So I decided to adapt the Wills river bridge kit with the inclusion of the Cattle creep kits to act as walkways for the public and the local fishermen. So far the river bridge kit arrived and it's test fitted by the side of the viaduct model for reference of how much more material is required to make the rest of it up. With some slopes at each end, would make a nice river side view for people to see. A road bridge for the other side is being thought of at the moment. But that's a mother story. 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by WhitehouseFilms