BenW

Trawsfynydd station (finally...)

Of all the intermediate stations on the line, Trawsfynydd is the only one where trains do more than just run through on their way to somewhere else.  The layout of the main station is consists of an up and down platform, crossovers from both directions to access the goods yard and further goods yard access from a ground frame unlocked by a key on the single line staff heading towards Cwm Prysor, the next box towards Bala.  This track plan is ripped from https://balaffest.org.uk/track-plans/.  Ignore the intriguing sets of points leading to destinations unknown beyond the bridge on the left of the plan, they don't feature on my model as it stands (although I will let you know about them as part of this series of musings).

So what makes this station an attractive prospect for a model?  Firstly, the working timetable shows it was something of an intermediate destination for trains on the branch.  Several passenger and freight trains from both Bala and Blaenau terminated here, in addition to the expected through services from junction to terminus.  The lean-to loco shed attached to the goods shed was the loco servicing point for this end of the line, meaning that there's interesting moves to be had in preparing, servicing and disposing branch locos.  The station is also on a curve which, with a little license and application of rule 01, makes is eminently suitable for being part of a roundy-roundy layout.  The platforms are also only 3 coaches long, so won't look more pinched than they ought to as part of an overall layout.

There are issues around model of Trawsfynydd though.  The prototype was on a 1:60 gradient running down from right to left as you look at the plan above.  Apparently the gradient was such that freight trains bound for Blaenau would marshal wagons for Trawsfynydd at the back of the train, split before the ground frame then allow the wagons to proceed into the yard by gravity once the loco had drawn the train forwards clear of the points.  The guard's van would then follow the rest of the train and reattach before proceeding onwards.  I have a cast iron dislike of gradients on model railways, finding them to make realistic running too much of a PITA.  Not only do locos struggle, but that one kit-built wagon that you managed to make really free running won't stay where you parked it without inventing some kind of functional brakes in 4mm scale!  The gradient is also unhelpful in that there is a mountain on the inside of the curve, and the landscape falls away on the south (near) side of the line.  Not a deal breaker, but I do like being able to se model trains running from eye level so I will have to plan carefully and compromise on the topography to make something visually interesting that is also an accurate(ish) representation of the prototype.  Still working this out, to be honest...

My first practical step has been to work out if I can fit Trawsfynydd in the space I have available, bearing in mind the issues with couplings and curves discussed previously.  Here is my current best effort in Templot showing it should be doable - now I've just got to wait for Mrs BenW and the hound to go away for long enough for me to take over the lounge again.  I'd use the railway room, but it's got a stud wall that needs taking down first and is too full of other modelling junk to get the plan out all over the floor.  Let me know your thoughts on this - I think I've managed to capture the character and proportions prototype fairly well, but I'm sure the RMWeb brains trust will have other ideas.  If anyone wants the Templot file to play with let me know by DM, I can't upload it here.

Next time we'll look at the timetable, operation of the model and signalling. 

Some historical info

Opened fully to traffic in 1883, the branch line from Bala Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog was the GWR's attempt to cash in on the slate traffic originating from the mines and quarries around Blaenau.  The narrow gauge Ffestiniog railway and the LNWR were already the established competition in the town, so when the slate trade dropped off in the 1890s it could be argued that the line was already obsolete.  Tracks ran from a junction on the Ruabon-Barmouth secondary main line through a desolate landscape of valleys and upland moors, with steep gradients and sharp curves abounding.  Trawsfynydd was the largest intermediate station between Bala and Blaenau.  The line soldiered on, never making much profit for its parent company, until the building of the Llyn Celyn reservoir flooded part of the route.  Despite plans being made to divert around the obstruction BR decided enough was enough, and the last trains ran in 1961.  For a more complete history and lots of pictures, readers are advised to purchase the following excellent tomes:

• Scenes from the past 25: Railways of North Wales; Bala Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog by D.W. Southern
• The Bala Branch; Reflections of a Lost Welsh Mountain Railway by M.F. Williams and D.J. Lowe.
• Rails through Bala; the Ruabon-Barmouth and Bala-Blaenau Ffestiniog lines - a Photographic History by A. Bodlander, M. Hambly, H Leadbeater and D. Southern

Background (cont.)

I know you've all been on tenterhooks, so to follow on from the last post...

It's my opinion that every modeller has one part of the hobby that they enjoy more than any others.  For some, it's building incredible locos or rolling stock, to others it's scenery or buildings.  For others it might be electrics or just the enjoyment of bringing a scene together - these latter modellers in particular seem to be prolific layout builders, but never seem to keep layouts long once they are finished.  I myself think that operation of a model railway should reflect the real thing as closely as possible, by which I mean to a purposeful timetable, obeying signals.  To achieve an immersive experience of operating a railway, locos & stock need to work, running smoothly at realistic speeds through pointwork without interference from the dreaded big hand from the sky.  To this end I think some form of automatic coupling & uncoupling function is essential, and it's here that the goods yard on the plan above (top left, if you're puzzled) falls down.

The line between Bala Junction and Bala consists of a bi-directional single line (innermost line on my plan) and a goods line, off which the yard was normally shunted.  Due to space restrictions in my new railway room, the access to the goods yard at Bala was situated on a tight curve, much closer to the junction station than in real life.  This would have resulted in coupling and uncoupling regularly taking place on said tight curve, something that is anathema to reliable coupling operations at all scales right up to 1:1.  My preferred coupling is the Alex Jackson, which I find to be quick, cheap and reasonably simple to make once you've got the knack for it (still working on that, but getting better!).  On tight curves the end of the coupling is well away from the centre line of the track, something extensive home testing has shown to make operation of the couplings hit and miss at best.  I investigated a number of other couplings, rejecting them all for different reasons:

• three links - not automatic & tricky to use over the rest of the layout in the foreground
• kadees - don't look right and a PITA to fit to the many kit-built 4 wheel wagons I was going to use
• Spratt & winkle - also don't look right and require an unprototypical autocoupler shuffle to use.  Single ended and also proprietary so reliant on the parts being available.
• DGs - not sure about looks, poor reputation for coupling on curves, availability can be limited
• Flippem (a development of the DG) - still not sure about the looks, difficult/impossible to fit to RTR wagons (of which I have several) and only available from a single, very small supplier.  My closest 2nd choice though, they worked pretty well on tight curves
• Burford coupling (search the Scalefour Society pages if you're curious, it's quite clever) - too much of a faff to make up and fit, although I acknowledge some etches are being developed which will help this (making them reliant on a small supplier again!). Also single-ended making turning stock a no-no.

I was left with AJs and the uncomfortable decision that a major layout redesign was required.  Many options were drawn out, from reversing the siding access to get a headshunt where the short dock siding should be to making Bala a through terminus.  None of these satisfied my desire to model the real location as built so, following a surprising amount of genuine emotional turmoil, I decided to abandon the plan until another opportunity presented itself in the future.

The question now was, what to do with a 4.8m x 3.4m room?  Given the glacial speed at which I make models for myself and the desire to 'do' Bala in the future I wanted to make sure that any stock I built for the interim layout would be compatible, so it made sense to look at a smaller station on either the Ruabon-Barmouth line or somewhere else along the branch from Bala-Blaenau Ffestiniog.  Various stations were rejected for being too big (Corwen, Llangollen), too dull to operate (Llanderfel, Arenig, Frongoch and many, many others) or too terminal (Blaenau itself - sometimes I just like to watch trains go round and round!).  It was at this point I really looked at Trawsfynydd.

Continued again soon when I promise I'll actually get to the point of this thread 🤣

On 17/04/2024 at 00:20, mallaig1983 said:

As a resident of said location I would be interested in following your thread if you have one?

No further comment will be made on the subject to avoid derailing the exciting developments on trip freights (I say that without a hint of irony, I love weird inefficient operations like this) but if anyone's interested I've created a new layout topic here: Trawsfynydd EM - the Blaenau Branch in the 50s

B

It feels very self-indulgent to be writing about a project that hasn't yet made it off my laptop, but I've been told following a throwaway comment elsewhere on RMweb that musing and planning is also of interest, so here goes.  The first couple of posts will be mainly back story explaining how I arrived at Trawsfynydd as a prototype, so bear with me while I get to the topic in the header!

The story starts in the late 90s when a studious, bespectacled 10 year old spied an advert in the local paper for 20 years of Railway Modeller back-issues.  Excited perusal under the covers when he was meant to be sleeping brought a huge variety of models into his consciousness, but one unassuming article really stood out.  Plan of the month in January 1988 (by K. Jaggers) consisted of a single black-and-white photo of Bala Junction, with a track plan showing this station on one side of a room and Bala Town on the other.  Our studious hero was struck by how interesting the plan was, so different to the usual double-track mainline with branch modelled so often in the other magazines.  He even drew the plan out by hand to understand it better, thinking to himself that one day he would like a version of the same plan.

Fast forward 20-years and our hero has finished school, sixth form and university, fulfilled a lifelong ambition by volunteering on a preserved railway, enjoyed a career, been made redundant from said career and ended up pulling levers on the big railway for a living.  All throughout this there was model railway involvement, most significantly with the NW Surrey area group of the EMGS, where the benefits of finescale 4mm modelling in terms of appearance and running qualities overcame the need to just 'get something running'.  Various layouts have been planned, started and discarded, always depicting compressed fictional locations that were never quite satisfactory.  Bala and Bala Junction lurking in the background didn't help; very desirable but always far beyond the means available.

A house move 18 months ago finally presented an opportunity; the previous owner of this forever home had converted a former garage into a sizeable office, complete with mod-cons like heating, electricity and access from the house though a very civilised internal door.  This was it, the opportunity to scratch that 25-year Bala itch!  Planning began before purchase was even completed, resulting in the plan below being drawn up in Templot:

The plan was to be a two-tier affair, run to a timetable with a minimum curve radius of 3'.  I (the hero, obviously...) even got so far as doing a full-size print off and play-testing to check that the timetabled moves would be doable in the space provided; they would, just about.  It should be pointed out that the soon-to-be Mrs BenW and the family hound were both away for a week while I took over the lounge - I'm still studious and frankly a bit obsessive, but not a complete sociopath!

There were a number of complications with this plan, most obviously how to gain access to the fiddle yards beneath the stations.  Gradients? Train elevators? Cassettes? Sector plates?  All very complicated but not completely insurmountable, especially given that this was the layout of a lifetime.  Sure there were also the compromises to fit it all in the space, especially the curve that Bala Town had to be built on, but surely I could manage to see past these.  What finally scuppered this plan was that most humble of railway activities, the shunting of the goods yard.

To be continued...

On 17/04/2024 at 00:20, mallaig1983 said:

As a resident of said location I would be interested in following your thread if you have one?

Not yet as all I have to show is a Templot file and a timetable at the moment, but I’ll post a link here as and when I get going. In the meantime it’s building research at the moment; in particular measurements/drawing of the station buildings and goods shed. The station seems to have been pretty camera shy from the books I’ve seen.

I've got a part-finished Rudd available for this flow if required.  Built the kit to get through the backlog of unbuilt wagons (to OO) but can't see how I'll justify running it through an EM version of Trawsfynydd in 1952!

Funny you mention No-Ox-Id - there’s a jar or two on their way here as well! Looking forward to seeing the results, my little tiny bit of track currently shares the room with a kitchen renovation workshop.

There are a huge number of threads on couplings out there on other forum pages - if leaders fail you might like to look at the Burford Autocoupling or the Flippem coupling, both of which claim to be good at coupling on curves. I have some Flippem bits spare if you want to try them.

18 hours ago, 61656 said:

 

After quite a bit of thought I reassembled it ‘as is’, but with most of the snags fixed, aside from the cab and yellow front end. This coincided with a visit from the Colonel, long term external consultant to Christleton enterprises. His advice is excellent, although he’s got quite a thirst for the local ale!

 

The 304 slotted neatly into the timetable and ran really well on the Piccadilly / Oxford Road turns. The rewired motor runs a lot smoother, it benefited from both the inclusion of Bachmann electronics and from setting CV54 to zero (we can talk more about this if you have stuttering motors on DCC). When it’s just running about as part of the fleet you notice its imperfections a lot less. 
 

 

Promotion!  

That booth is made of plywood - if "super expensive" was meant to be ironic I'm afraid you've strayed closer to an accidental truth!

Looking good, they'll be a nice rare feature 

Well that's very pleasing indeed.  Worth sacrificing the MLV for after all!

What are you thinking for power & sound?

"In Cod We Trust"

On 13/11/2022 at 20:32, 61656 said:

It’s going to be tricky hiding the wall to sky interface at this end, but a tower block may do the trick. 

As there's already a tower block at one end, how about a great big scrubby buddleia growing out of the brickwork, with a pile of discarded furniture tossed over the wall by residents of the flats next to the railway?  

At the current rate of progress, will the timetable be completed by the end of the winter? 🤣

On 18/03/2022 at 11:43, 61656 said:

I do think a site visit is in order, hopefully with my wingman for a couple of pints. They will have to work exceptionally hard to equal the quality of ale served when operating the model. 

I’ve driven past the pub there a couple of times - certainly looks posh enough to provide high quality!

Operating session photos look great, but I must have those ballast wagons off you for finishing!

Wow, where did you get that from?

Bardon Hill is the big aggregate quarry over near my old place in Coalville. GBRF still take trains of stone out, no idea where to but Geoff H used to work on the line back in the day - he’d have some idea about traction 

You mentioned lighting circuits ealier in the thread re. the proposed alterations - is this for building /yard lighting on the model or a bespoke solution for lighting the layout as a whole?  If the latter, experience has taught that it's best to get it in now rather than hope to find a way to cobble a rig together after the layout is back together.  You did ask for people to mae suggestions....

Definitely worth extended contemplation that; I’d take at least a couple of years to plan the job

Splitting the boards to do….?

11 hours ago, 61656 said:

A discussion about brick colours is high on the agenda this weekend. 

CANNOT WAIT 

Looking at the shape of the hoppers, you won't even need legs - the end slopes and internal ribs should hold the plasticard base just right without them.  MArvellous!

14 hours ago, 61656 said:

Wow! They look impressive. I’d make sure the beer cellar is full but it’s only ever an issue after you’ve been, not before…

 

As for the shark, if you send me a picture of the underneath then I can advise on grinding wheel size! It may be worth waiting until you visit, as I have a possible move to kadee’s coming up. 

 

I have a cunning plan for removable ballast loads too…

I was thinking of sticking some ballast to plasticard with a paperclip glued to on the underside and some legs to hold it at the right angle - you just need a magnetic wand like the type used for retrieving screws etc then to remove the loads. Worked with coal in 16t mineral wagons on Swaynton, just needs accurate cutting!

On 19/10/2021 at 07:25, 61656 said:

By 1986 the selection of class 40’s still working is down to just 5 for me, celebratory D200 plus the 4 x 97’s. I do plan to have one of the 97’s for ballast workings, probably the split box; it’s quite handy that one of each type got saved for departmental use. 
 

I’m hoping my reworking of the timetable will reduce the number of DMU’s I need to around 4! 
 

Good to have another North Wales coast fan onboard.

 

Speaking of ballast workings and just to prove that I do pay for my driving ticket at Christleton Jct, here's the beginnings of something for that 97 to haul.  The 3 Dogfish are from Cambrian kits, but with replacement buffers, handwheels, vac pipes and, in one case, roller bearings to better reflect 1986.  I've also reworked the brakegear on the latter 2 builds so that they line up for the wheels - think the original kitt was designed for P4.  They're horrible to put together; each wagon has taken about 8 hours work to get to this stage!  4 Dogfish and 2 Catfish still to go...

Shark from Hornby, just need to work out how to get the ploughs off so I can swap the couplings for 3-links.  Any advice gratefully received!