Bron Effans

I have finally sourced my replacement for Dolgoch and it arrived the other day. I had decided to replace my version of Dolgoch as I didn't really want a version of it with a green livery, I have designs on another locomotive in green. To this end I have obtained a Bachmann Rheanas which I am going to convert into a Fletcher Jennings using the Narrow planet conversion kit.  I am planning to use the new funnel and smokebox on the boiler and add the additional details from the box. I don't plan on utilising the cab as I feel that the current cab exhibits sufficient detail for my needs. The replacement cab will be retained for a future project... watch this space.  Anyway here are a couple of quick photos of Rheanas, before he goes under the knife, please excuse the blurriness of the pictures. 

As part of my work to bring the Vale of Rheidol and NWNGR Carriages to a good standard, I have had to overcome some issues with bowing in some of the carriages. It was worse on VoR No.2 where the lack of seats had produced a severe warp along both sides of the body.  I have attempted to remedy this by adding in the benches to reduce the warping, which seems to have had a positive effect. Howver, I seem to have misplaced 3 benches for this carriage, which means I will need to source some new benches once funds become available.  In other news the detailing on 24 and the other VoR Carriage has taken a pace with the construction of their seating and a refreshed paint job.

I set out my vision for this year on New Years Day where I mentioned that my fleet of 15 carriages needed attention. To that end I undertook work to finish some detail on one of the VoR carriages and also my copy of Coach 24. I must confess I am a little annoyed with myself for the way that I have treated this model. I bought it with every intention of doing a good job and it has unfortunately languished by the side of the layout for at least 5 months with only the basecoat of paint on it.  I have taken my detail brush to the droplight windows and have touched up the drab brown and made it look more like wood on the frames. I think they’re looking a lot better now and I have also turned this new colour on the interior of the carriage. I hope this will look better on the layout. 

After my purchase of the European Carriages I decided to convert one into a Pullman style car.  The carriage before the process begins.  I tried to emulate the look of Bodysgallen on the Welsh Highland Railway to pair up with 2070 and 2080, the other two converted European carriages. I took time to build up the layers of cream and have experimented with a different type of Games Workshop paint for the Brown of the carriage. Basecoated bodyshell I did a basecoat and then used the new paints to build up the layers on top to recreate the Pullman livery. Unfortunately in my haste I used the wrong type of masking tape and it ended up ripping some of the paintwork off the side panel. The damage after the tape incident. Some hasty painting later and it appeared to be sorted. All that remains to be done is to get the lining and find a way to do the lettering on the pullman.

I have begun construction of my third freelance rolling stock project for my layout. I took the decision to retire the banana and repurpose the chassis for another project. I had purchased the bodyshell for the 009 gauge railbus from Budget Model Railways and had swapped some components around so that I could create a two car DMU for the railway.  I began the construction process in a slightly different way to aim for some uniformity of the two carriages. I painted all of the components in their base colour before assembly to make sure that the two carriages would look identical. Past experience with these 3D printed kits has taught me that they are very simple to construct.  I used my regular method of applying a base coat of cheap acrylic before using railmatch colours to create the final finish. At the time of writing this is how the model is looking. I would like to pass on my thanks to both Mike and Douglas at Budget model railways for all of their ...

I have reached the point of finishing the exterior of my first Zillerbahn carriage conversion. This one is my interpretation of Carriage 2060 from the Welsh Highland Railway. This carriage was originally from Romania I believe and needed some alteration for use on the Welsh Highland Railway. I have created my own homage to this carriage using the Carriage with the rounder windows. It is longer than 2060 so I have given it the moniker of 2070 and will build an interior in the future. Carriage 2070 on the right of the picture before conversion and relivery. I have tried to replicate the livery of the Welsh Highland using Indian Red and Cream to mimic their livery. I started the process off with my traditional undercoat using Games Workshop layering paint as a primer coat for the new livery. The Carriage in it's new base coat using paints from the Games Workshop paint range.   I then began the process of applying the new livery which was a very time consuming process...

Happy New Year to each and everyone and welcome to the new decade! In the last post I promised that I would give an update on the carriage situation and explain what I intended to do with the burgeoning fleet of carriages that I had acquired over the last few months. As I explained in a previous post, I was planning on running carriages in fixed rakes so that there would be a theme for each train that I ran. At the time of writing I own 15 carriages in varying stages of completion. They can be formed into 5 rakes that can be accommodated at Effans Uchaf. They are named: VoR Set. Consisting 2 Dundas Vale of Rheidol style carriages. NWNGR Set. Consisting 1 Dundas Vale of Rheidol carriage and a Bro Madog Observation Carriage.  Short Bogie Set. Consisting of 3 freelance bogie carriages. Bug Box Set. Consisting of 5 Bug box style carriages of various builds.  WHR Set. Consisting of two Liliput Carriages 2070 and the new Pullman Carriage( Name TBD) The hitherto unnam...