Phil Traxson

Several different GWR style stations from Invertrains. They also supply matching engine sheds, goods sheds and signal boxes.

As has been pointed out already,elsewhere if not here, if you buy a kit and have it on a decent chassis and mechanism, sound fitted then have it built, there is no way you could get it for much less than double the asking price for this. Coach kits are £80, can you get one built for £30, no chance. These are the comparisons you should be making. Andy Young beat me by seconds!!

Nice if you have a choice. Here in Porthmadog the 3 local, and others not too distant, have gone E10 with no Premium Grade E5 pumps. My nearest appears to be Bettws y Coed or way down the A55 close to Penmaenmawr or Llandudno (all are Shell stations). The fuel consumption on my Suzuki based Trike has gone from "not great" to "rubbish" on the change although apart from this, so far, performance seems to be much the same. With only a 3.5 gallon tank my visits were pretty frequent anyway!! Edit to say that I have found a supplier of E5 in Criccieth, on the main street too, only 3 miles away. Missed it because I usually use the promenade to pass through as it's not clogged with lorries and caravans (also no point in having a posey machine if I don't show it off!)

I thought that but a couple of years ago, 30 years after I sold my last 'bike, I bought a 535 Virago, low seat height, fun to ride, I've done 12,000 miles on it in 2 years. In April this year I bought a Trike, Suzuki VL1500 based and I'm enjoying that too, took it from Porthmadog to visit my daughter in Horndean and back, 300 miles each way. I was born in 1947, you're never "too bloody old"!

Invertrain do one with the body off a Great North of Scotland van.

More of Abersoch, "The Warren" beach and Llanbedrog headland. It was the clouds that made this picture for me though. Pity about all the caravans almost on the beach. Yet again with the tide in.

The sunset afterglow silhouettes the hills at 10.30 pm, from my lounge window in Porthmadog. The sun actually sets to the left of the photo, not directly behind those hills, which are almost due North.

The harbour Abersoch, North Wales And with the tide in!

It was still like that at 2 o'clock in the afternoon,but today (Saturday) it was cloudless!

What chassis is under the loco please?

The resin sides and ends are pre 1996 (when I took over) Portwynnstay Models castings based on modified Gakken coach sides and ends. I went on to modify them further and turn them into a complete coach kits with chassis wheels and seating. At the time the Minicraft complete train kits were in one of there many hibernations and not expected to be available again, they have resurfaced and disappeared again several times since. Any castings I made do not have the cusp on the back as I use a different method of casting than the original owner of the business.

Quite true, to give more idea each of the coaches in that train are 30+ feet long and the loco considerably longer!! Work it out for yourself.

And you can ,of course, preset the vernier and lock it to the correct size, what ever that may be.

With British civil service and bean counter spec. interference!!

I've found a Gloucester works photo of the North Wales Narrow Gauge coach in "The Welsh Narrow Gauge Railway" By J.D.C.A. Prideaux showing the panels and beading but unfortunately it is quite dark and doesn't scan well. However here is my take on it in model form, although I think i may have the shallow centre beading a little too wide. If you click on the picture it should take you to my Flickr pages and there are half a dozen pictures of these contained in 2 albums there. They have real working Cleminson chassis too.

If it helps, and supposing you haven't seen the photo's before, there are a couple of Gloucester Wagon works pictures of Severn and Wye coaches in the Oakwood press book "Carriage Stock of Minor Standard Gauge Railways" (Locomotion Papers 109) with quite a lot of the underframe and solebar detail highlighted. The body panelling of these is similar to the "Cleminson" coaches of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railway built at around the same time by Gloucester Wagon company. I built a 7 mm scale model of the 1st saloon in one of these pictures some 25 years ago using this picture and a drawing from an article in (I think) Model Railway Constructor. Unfortunately the model has been mislaid by it's owner, otherwise it would have become a resin kit by now to go with my other esoteric, sell one every two years, kits! Correction, just found the drawing for what it is worth, not Constructor but the short lived Scale Model Trains for May 1995 on page 235 part of an article on "Compact Coaches" by Giles Barnabe Pages 234/5.

That doesn't make me smile it makes me shake my head in despair at the way noisy , minority factions seem to have so much clout and are allowed to influence the way the majority live!

Exhaust steam pipe from the Vacuum ejector, the other end should go into the side of the smokebox.

I think maybe you should remind him where you work and what your job is Hobby,only then will he realise you may have more knowledge of these things than he.

That's how I started 30+ years ago, and then 5 years later some one showed me how to make moulds from my coach sides and ends and resin cast from those moulds. Then I moved up a scale and bought the moribund Port Wynnstay Models business and I'm still doing it. It's my iteration of the business's 25th birthday of going public this year. Just a warning of the possible consequences of what you are making a rather nice job of!!!

Around the end of WW2,it was interrupted by National Service and he was de-mobbed in 1946. The motor was a pre-war device that lasted until the forge closed around 1962, it stood on the floor but was around waist high only a few feet away from the forge, not very powerful for all its size. You could see all the works inside it through the large vents in the cast ends, it also had a big star/delta starter box on a cast column alongside it. There were two semi circular brick built forges about 10 ft diameter with rails full of different shaped tongs, often custom made for specific jobs and forged by the 'smith, around the front of them and several anvils and swage blocks plus a couple of fly presses, at times there had apparently been 4 'smiths working at them but I only ever remember Dad and the owner working the one that was in use in the 1950's. The heat and the smell and watching Dad make proper wrought iron gates (not ornamental steel!) made a big impression on a sub-teenager as you can no doubt tell as some of these memories are now 60+ years ago. Phil T.

Now all that needs is a big old electric motor on the floor driving a line shaft fixed high on the wall with flat belts down the machines and to a fan alongside the forge to provide draught for it and it will resemble the forge that my Dad served his apprenticeship and then worked in until it closed when I was about 15 years old! Phil T.

Go for it, at 72 years old, 2 years ago I bought a Yamaha Virago XVS 535 V-twin after not riding for best part of 30 years. Absolutely great, sit up riding position, low seat height, slightly forward foot pegs. Ideal for the more mature rider, keeps up with the traffic, will cruise at motor way speeds but trickles along Welsh lanes comfortably too. Since July 2019 I've done nearly 10,000 miles on it, would have been more without Covid restrictions. Just about to take delivery of a Suzuki VL1500 V-twin(8th of April) but in deference to my age it's a trike! Still keeping the Virago though. Phil T

Here you are 5 ft long, 19 inches wide and 17 inches high. Fiddle sticks clip on both ends. The top track also goes through the left hand end scene and can have a fiddle stick clipped to it. This is DCC, including the points, but would be easy without, just feeds at either end through on/off switches and insulating gaps between the points. May be less fun without DCC as it often needs two loco's to shunt the sidings as it has no on-scene run round loop which is why I suggest on/off switches for the two feeds. Can't go into detail on the electrics as they were installed by the previous owner, suffice it to say they work well, very easy to lose yourself in shunting for the odd half hour or so.

And don't forget the Midland railway Centre at Swanwick.