Bron Effans

A few weeks ago, I finally turned my hand to ballasting and what a fuss it has caused me. I followed some tutorials on YouTube and learnt, to my frustration, that the advice and warnings given by the video creators could and definitely would come true. Firstly, the glue gummed up three of the four sets of points on the layout, meaning that trains could only navigate into platform 2 and, owing to glue getting between the blades, stop right on the mouth of the headshunt.  Secondly,  the tutorials had also told me that it could take a while for the mixture of water, glue and ballast might take a day or so to dry. They weren't lying. I chose to do my ballasting at the end of September (NB Sometimes what I post is a few weeks after the event). This coincided with a sudden and rather weird cold spell. The consequence of this sudden cold spell was that the sticky wet mixture took nearly a week to dry. This meant that I could not detect the third issue caused by thi...

In my last post I mentioned that I had acquired four bug boxes for the railway. In addition to that, I managed to get hold of one that had been built and painted. However, it was in need of some restoration, which is what I favour in my builds. So I purchased the little green quarrymans coach and set to work.  The coach pre-restoration I began by removing the original plastic windows and applying the paint stripper then leaving it for an hour or so.  Below are the results so far. As you can see there is another layer of paint underneath the original which will still need removing. More on that later.

I had a bit of an impulsive moment the other week and purchased a lovely Roco 0-6-0T locomotive from someone who was selling their entire collection. I took a bit of a gamble on it, as they can be quite expensive, but having seen it in action on social media I knew that it was a safe bet for a steady workhorse that I could perhaps re-livery or use the chassis on another locomotive kit. Either way it will look great working on trains alongside the Ziller locomotive. Just look at it! It is gorgeous. Thoroughly out of location, but that is what I love about modelling. I can do what I want and how I want.  It really is an amazing locomotive and it will be featuring prominently on the line. I am still deciding what to do regarding the chassis. It looks too good as is and I don't really want to hack it to pieces for another engine.  The only negative to this loco is the sheer size of it compared to the rest of the fleet. It is by far the widest locomotive I own now ...

I have pursued the construction and restoration of my GEM model bug box carriages. Today, I completed another two examples. The first being the Quarrymans coach that I have been restoring for some time and the second being an Ashbury style compartment coach. The Quarryman's coach has been an exceptionally involved process. Considering that I started the restoration about four/five weeks ago, it has taken me much more effort than I first thought it would.  After stripping back the first layer, I discovered that a second layer of orange/ brown paint lay below. I attacked it with the paint stripper today in order to properly relivery it and complete it.  The Quarryman coach with the final layer of orange underneath.  I have also taken the liberty of adding some adhoc seats for passengers to sit on. I wasnt too fussed about the detail of these seats as the windows are so small on this carriage. To that end I made use of some spare carriage steps from one of the Dunda...

I have been focussing on the rolling stock and electrics, much to the neglect of the scenery of the layout itself. I have been watching some tutorials on Budget model railways on how to achieve a good standard of scenery without breaking the bank and I have been working it out during a bout of the flu. The redundant space before. I wanted a hill towards the west end of the station so that there is a feature for the trains to run under into the fiddle yard. I have used parcel packing to fill out the redundant space and have added a layer of plaster over the top of it so that there is a proper surface to add some buildings on and possibly continue the mine railway in future. The packing behind the retaining wall. I have added more packing behind the retaining wall and will cover it in plaster once I am satisfied with how the hill has ended up.

I watched the latest episode of moving pictures today. https://youtu.be/zS2YtEPVZwk  I was inspired by the site of the newly restored Baldwin 608 and it’s run from Porthmadog to Beddgelert. I have always been an admirer of the Baldwin’s and made it a priority to get one for myself on Bron Effans. I chose a rendition of 590 just because I loved how it looked in its livery and it’s connection to one of my favourite narrow gauge railways.  I decided it would be a bit of fun to try and recreate some of the sites seen in the video with my own carriage rake and Prince locomotive. Here are some photos of me trying to capture some of the magic I saw in the clip. 

As you may know, I acquired four GEM kits for bug box style carriages that I was going to turn into my own rendition of the FR Heritage set. Thus far, I have built one of the bugboxes the earlier version. It was quite a fiddly kit requiring me to pare off the spike on the end of the wheelset so that it could fit on the bottom frame of the carriage.  Another interesting feature was the need to attach a small fabric washer to each axle to prevent the whole carriage acting like a lightning rod and causing a short on the circuit. Hindsight is wonderful and I wish I had taken some photos of that part of the process to show to you. Here are some pictures of the carriage in it's green basecoat and with the first layer of indian red.  Here is is coupled with the first of my bugboxes and the peco guards van. Showing off the green basecoat. Showing off the first layer of the Indian Red livery. Just as a final thought, for this blog, on the subject of undercoat...

I have recently been very fortunate to be able to acquire four new carriages for the layout. They are from the GEM range and will form four different "Bug box" style carriages, similar to the ones found in the Ffestiniog fleet. They are going to stay wrapped up for now whilst I concentrate on the scenery side of the layout. The carriages in kit form still unwrapped. I am so grateful to the person I bought these carriages from. They will look the part when they are coupled with my original bug box to form a 5 carriage train. I am going to try and get hold of another FR style guards van just for this set. The red bug box style carriage running with 590.