Dukedog

Hi, and thanks for your comment. As this was my first attempt at this type of arrangement I wasn't sure about bearings as such, plus I wanted to keep costs down as I wasn't sure if it was going to work. All I have used is "penny" washers as spacers between the frame and deck.. I might consider some improvement once finished and working properly. HTH Frank

Yes! it's wood butchering time again! I've made a start on the first of two fiddle yards for my new Cambrian modular layout, currently one module is built and finished (?) Morfa Bach. The second module (Penmaenpool MPD) is under way and the track is down. Next job there is the turnout operating motor installation. How ever this has been put on the back burner for a day or two whilst I took advantage of dry weather to work outside and butcher some more wood! The fiddle yard shown here is for the Morfa Bach end of the layout. I looked at several designs for fiddle yards and finally settled on a turntable type. The main reason for choosing this design is the fact that I can turn round complete trains without fear of damaging any stock. The turn table will have three tracks, and each road will hold a loco and a couple of coaches which is enough for what I need to operate the layout. The fiddle yard progress up to date is shown in pictures below. The turntable in the centre road running position. The turntable swung out. Construction is from 44x18 softwood, 6mm and 9mm plywood. The turntable just turns on a simple 6mm bolt through a horizontal cross member. The table being shimmed up tp level with the fixed section with steel washers A "Nyloc" nut is used tightened up so as to make turning the table by hand easy but at the same time take up any sloppiness in the fixing. The final job for today was to drill holes in the side members at the layout end to accommodate the 5 pin DIN socket for one of the "cabs" and a 9 way D plug for the interconnections to the main layout board. There is still work to do but that will have to wait for more dry weather! Cheers for now Frank

This 3D printing lark is completely beyond me I'm afraid.Although I can use Autocad it is is mainly for electrical drawings not this type of thing. The bottom line is that I am impressed with what has been achieved, It certainly looks the way to go. Just a thought though regarding the numbers on the buffer beam. Would it not have been possible to have recessed numbers and fill the numerals with paint? Cheers Frank

I'm always on the lookout for the unusual to include on my model railways. Either as scenic cameos or wagon loads. Like 100's of others I have a Bachmann "Weltrol" wagon, usually these come with either a boiler or transformer type of load and like all mass produced rolling stock looks the same as everyone else's. So when the opportunity of purchasing a non working 009 model of this Alco locomotive came my way I jumped at he chance of getting it before it's owner put it on Ebay. The Alco may be more well known to narrow gauge modellers as "Mountaineer" of Ffestiniog railway fame. I wasn't bothered that the chassis didn't run or that the rear pony truck and wheels were missing as all I wanted it for was a suitable load for my Welltrol. An afternoons' work on the bench and a spot of paint produced this. After removing the boiler load I stuck the Alco down to the bed of the wagon with some 5 min epoxy, I don't want it to drop off! I used some fine chain to secure the load to the wagon and that's it, Job done. Look out for it in use on either Pen Y Bont or Morfa Bach/Penmaenpool at an exhibition soon! Cheers! Frank

Yet more brass bashing from the master! And another blog to keep an eye on! looking good so far Paul. Cheers! Frank

Even more incredible modelling in 2mm scale. You certainly have a good eye for detail, there is more detail here than some top 4mm scale layouts I have seen. I'm well impressed, I hope I can do as well with my efforts in 00! Cheers! Frank

Nice work CK! You will definitely need some of those red/white chequer limited clearance signs on that one! Cheers! Frank

Although the Severn Valley Railway is virtually on my door step I never seem to get down there as often as I should. It's been over 8 months since my last visit so, with the sun shining SWMBO and myself set off for a quick visit. We wanted to visit the "Engine House" at Highley, as, believe it or not I have never been there since it opened a few years ago. So off we went and made our way to Highley via Bridgnorth. What a morning! Half way along Highley High Street the road was completely blocked off by road works! and to get to Highley station meant a detour all the way back to Bridgnorth , then over the river Severn, follow the A442 to Kidderminster, then on to Bewdley, then up the west bank of the Severn back to Highley! A round trip of 40 miles just to get to the other end of Highley High Street! Sod that for a game of soldiers! The engine house visit will have to wait until June when I shall go by train instead of car. Anyway, to make something of the morning we stopped off at Hampton Loade and took refreshment at the station tea room(?). It's not actually a tea room though, more of a kiosk really but, it says "Tea Room" on the sign! Hampton Loade is a passing place on the SVR where both up & down trains are in the station at the same time. Makes things interesting to watch but not that good for photography as once both trains have departed it's an hour and a half wait for the next pair to cross, one of them being a train you have just seen depart towards Bridgnorth. This time it would be running bunker/tender first though, again not ideal for photographs. Moan over! I did manage about 6 pictures some of which were total crap and deleted straight away, Of the ones worth keeping, although not fantastic I've posted below. 5164 arriving at Hampton Loade from Kidderminster, Bewdley , Arley & Highley. The fireman giving up and receiving the single line token from the Hampton Loade signalman. 5164 about to depart for Bridgnorth. (The southbound train behind the Stanier Mogul has already departed.) Finally back to Meldrew moaning mode! I had to take this shot to show the amount of weeds both in the four foot and in the ballast each side. It may be an acceptable standard for Network Rail but the GWR would never have countenanced weed infested track! One other good thing came out of our trip. I picked up a bit of railwayania from the sales van at the station. More of that in another entry. Cheers for now Frank

This is coming along nicely. I like the top photograph, it really gives the impression of perspective and makes the layout look a lot longer than it probably is. Nice work on the walls too. Cheers! Frank

All the track is now laid, and power feed droppers connected. I haven't taken any pictures yet because no doubt you have seen 00 gauge track and turnouts before. The points are home made copper clad sleepers and bullhead rail, so need some thing a bit less stressful than solenoid point motors to operate them. I have chosen to use Fulgarex slow action motorised switch machines, unlike the Tortoise type motor the action is a linear movement rather than a fulcrum wire used on the Tortoise motors. To operate the switch blades via the tie bar I came up with this home made device. Knocked up in about an hour on the workbench. The lever needs to be drilled out at the correct position to reduce the throw of the Fulgarex. The switch blades only move a few mm whereas the Fulgarex has a stroke of 8.5mm The electrical connector block inserts on the slide bar act as mechanical limits to prevent damage to the point tie bar and blades. The materials used are brass strip, tube, wire, 8BA pin and nuts and a piece of copper clad PCB material. Also in the picture can be seen a simple "bell crank" also made from PCB material and a 10BA pin and nuts. The idea is to turn the drive to the TOU through 90deg to allow the Fulgarex unit enough space under the baseboard. Any "over drive" from the Fulgarex will be absorbed by a Z loop (as opposed to an omega loop) Reading up on the internet about using Fulgarex motors I found that although designed for 12v DC operation they are a bit too fast at that supply voltage.Most users recomending 9V operation. Added to this that my transformer gives me over 22V DC after rectification and smoothing then they would certainly whizz across! Not what I wanted really. I plan to overcome this by using a simple electronic circuit to control the motor voltage and thus the change over speed of the switch blades. Using a commonly used circuit and a few components from my electronics odds & ends box I knocked this small circuit board. I can now set the speed of the point motors to a reasonably gentle change over speed. A far cry from the Peco points on my existing layout Pen Y Bont, where old H&M point motors slam the switch blades over at Mach 1! I'm still waiting for the Fulgarex units to arrive from DCC suppliets. Once I get them fitted and working I'll update this entry. Cheers for now Frank

Totally agree, Great job! Cheers! Frank

Finally made a start on building Penmaenpool MPD Butchered some wood and started track laying. The first turnout and main running line are laid. Hand built points and C&L track is being used. The drawing pins are just to stop anything moving while the PVA sets. I don't use track pins, just glue. Once ballasted it's not going anywhere. This picture shows the view from the Morfa Bach end looking towards the next board/fiddle yard. This view is looking away from the fiddle yard towards the Morfa Bach end. The "hole in the wall" can be seen and aligns with the tunnel exit on Morfa Bach. Another update as and when. Cheers! Frank

When I started railway modelling back when Adam was a lad if you wanted decent looking rolling stock you had to either scratch build it or use kits. The only RTR stuff available was either Tri Ang or Hornby which in those days were intended to be sold more as toys for boys rather than railway models. Since then RTR stuff has come on leaps and bounds each year the accuracy and standard of detail improves. Take this Bachmann ex Southern Railway Van, The chassis is superb. Long gone are the big moulded details like brake levers and brake gear. Even the vacuum cylinder has levers and rodding fitted. The vacuum pipes and body detail is also much better now than it was only a couple of years ago. Anyway, I picked up this van on my last visit to my local model shop. With Pen Y Bont and my new layout(s) you can never have too many vans. It was cats and dogs on Saturday afternoon so instead of layout building out in the shed I decided to do a quick make over on this latest item of stock. My first job was to remove the tension lock couplings and replace them with Smiths instanters. Removing the couplings is easy, just two screws and they are off, with no mouldings left behind to carve away. A few seconds work with my circular saw attachment in my mini drill cut a slot in each of the buffer beams to accept the shanks of the coupling hooks which were then glued in with two part epoxy. To make it look a bit more different to a standard RTR van I painted the roof in Railmatch "Dirty Black." The body sides have been given a wash of Humbrol matt black and thinners. A little dry brushing of Humbrol light earth colour and light grey on the under frames and lower body side tones the "plastic" look down a bit. A dab of dark grey on the vacuum bags to tone them down and job done ...For now anyway. I'm still not 100% happy with it, it needs something else, like chalk markings or posters to bring it to life. That will come later and be another post here some time. Still, not bad for a couple of hours work on a wet afternoon. Cheers for now! Frank

I haven't updated this blog for a couple of weeks mostly due to the fact that I have have had a few health problems and to be fair not much work has been done on the modelling scene. However, Morfa Bach made it's very first outing on Sunday 22nd April to the MRG Forum's members meeting day at Bristol. So, the couple of days last week saw some last minute tweaks and a general tidy up. I was hoping to get rid of the temporary back scene and replace it with something more suitable but, time has run out on me and it went on static display as you see it here and now. Here I have added a few more trees to the scene. A couple of Anita Decor conifers and a couple of seamoss deciduous types. I'm quite impressed by the conifers and will more than likely get some more on my next order to International models. The problems with the temporary backscene can be seen in the next picture and the one above. Above the join between two sheets can be seen quite starkly although the two sections match up there is a distinct colour change between the two sections. The temporary back scene is by Gaugemaster and only comes in 3ft sections so with a 4ft long board a join is unavoidable. Also, looking at the next picture a distinct sheen can be seen. The scene is printed on semi gloss paper and light just shows up the reflective surface. Finally for this session just before the layout was packed into the car for our journey south west, I had to take this shot of Erlestoke Manor with the "UP" CCE emerging from the Stygian gloom of Morfa Bach tunnel. I still have work to do, like, point rodding to finish,cable trunking into the tunnel, more small boats on the river bank and maybe more trees. Cheers for now Frank

Looking at your pictures, You have a single chimney Castle class loco with the flush sided Hawksworth tender. Looking in my books the first one I found that suits that combination is 5087 "Tintern Abbey" And yes, the plates are available from 247 Developments. HTH Frank

Super job! Nice detailing and paint job. Etched brass kit I take it? Cheers! Frank

Welshpool 7th October, I'll be there with Pen Y Bont Cheers! Frank

Well that's me snookered then! I picked up one of these kits from a stand at an exhibition some time ago but never got around to putting it together. After reading all the comments I will probably leave it in the drawer for another few years! Unless some one could suggest a reason for using it on my layout! Cheers! Frank

Rich, Have you given any thought to the Coopercraft W1/W5 version? I have built a couple of these and found them a really easy build albeit in 00 scale. Just a thought that's all. Cheers! Frank

Nice permanent way! please excuse my ignorance but, what track and point work is it you are using? looks extremely lifelike to me. I can't believe this is 2mm scale! Cheers! Frank

Looking rather nice CK. The cast plaster construction makes it look quite a substantial structure. Solid as a brick s*******se! or so they say! Cheers! Frank

"Something in the C+L instructions which I completely endorse - point building should be enjoyed." ​ Totally agree,Having just made two B6 turnouts for my new project I can honestly say I really enjoyed making them. It's very satisfying to see stock running through your home brew track and points and saying to yourself "I did that" Cheers! Frank

This time last week the weather was bright and sunny with temperatures around the 20degC mark, To-day it is blowing a blizzard outside, putting the damper on any chance of wood butchering the baseboard for Penmaenpool MPD, the next module in my Modular Cambrian model railway layout. As it happens there is always other work that can be done indoors in the warm! I need two points, (turnouts) for Penmaenpool and one Trap (catch) point. I also wanted the minimum radius to be no less than 36inches, use bullhead rail and look a bit more prototypical than the Peco offerings. I have down loaded the excellent Templot software and after playing about for an hour or two managed to print some full size templates of a B6 left hand turnout. I have built PCB sleeper track before but, that was donkeys years ago when I was a member of Stourbridge Model railway Society. However I set to and built this B6 left hand turnout. The tie bar that operates the switch blades was designed to be similar to a RTP point so that I can operate it from below the baseboard using Tortoise point motors. Electrically the switch blades are bonded to the appropriate running rails and are gapped just before the crossing. The finished job being exactly like the DCC friendly modified Peco points. So, there we have the result of an afternoon on the work bench, Just one more the same as this one and a trap point to make. Better I shut up and get on with it then! Cheers! Frank

Thanks for the comments folks, much appreciated. CK, yes I think the location has very much potential I just hope I can give it good justice. Stu, No legs on the modules as such. I intend to use builders trestles as support for the whole show. (saves time on wood butchering my own!) HH, Curved baseboards, may be a possibility, The only drawback is I want to keep the minimum radius to no less than 36inches. But, it is worth considering. Cheers guys! Frank