Bron Effans

I have been quiet of late with various bits and pieces related to my return to work. It has meant that I have not really had a good deal of time spare to do any building or painting. I have begun the refit of the new European bogie coaches, with a view to anglicising them somewhat.   Unfortunately, due to the lockdown, paint has been in extremely short supply. My desire to use the aerosol paints on the carriages has meant that the repainting of these carriages has been set back some time until the shops get new stock. I am still intending to use BR blue and grey on these carriages just to add a bit of variety to the stock on the line.  I was fortunate enough to be able to obtain this new example from someone on the 009 Facebook group. It has been heavily cut down and carries roughly the livery that I am intending to use on these new carriages. This example is heavily battered and has definetly seen better days. With that in mind, I shall be using...

I found some spare time one rainy sunday in June and set about the repainting of my new diesel. The intention is to repaint it into a livery reminiscent of the Romanian locomotive owned by the Corris Railway. I purchased a Liliput diesel locomotive that I wanted to convert into my own version of Number 11.  I dismantled the locomotive and followed guidance from Youtuber Mattymidland how to repaint the locomotive.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBscpi7ZVvk I made sure to remove the light fittings and set about removing the transfers using a fibre brush, using gloves to protect myself from any errant pieces of glass fibre. I then primed to bodyshell and gave it a first coat of BR black using Railmatch paints.  I als set about construction of my version of Carriage 38 which was assembled and sprayed BR Maroon.  These have both been left overnight to dry and I will set about finding some time to complete the paintwork on both of these...

I have finally got round to constructing interiors for the 3 Liliput carriages that I bought last year. I wanted to fit them out in a similar manner to those that operate on the Welsh Highland Railway. They are set out in a 2 + 1 formation with two seats on one side and 1 single seat on the other. In Ffestiniog and WHR parlance this is known as the clock side. I had originally aimed to build the interior for the pullman carriage today, however I was unsure how to build high backed chairs that are on the WHR. I took the decision to fit out the "Brake" coach for this rake and set about the process of building the interior with the plasticard. I cut three identical flooers for the three coaches and went from there. The basic interior was driven by the need to have a toilet cubicle at the rear end of the carriage as it travels up the line. I started with that as my basis and then worked from there to try and keep the seats the same size and level.  I then added small str...

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.

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...

I have recently had the opportunity to acquire a pair of Liliput European Narrow Gauge bogie coaches. I bought them from a fellow member of a 009 group on a popular social media platform. I bought two with the intention of creating my own version of Bodysgallen and a rendition of Coach 2060 on the Welsh Highland Railway.  I have so far reliveried one of the carriages into my own rendition of the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railway livery, using Indian Red and Cream. The pictures below show the carriage in it's basecoat before I add the first layer of Indian Red.  Side by side with Vale of Elan to show of the differences in size. Sat in the station, ignore the large red splodge. The brush slipped. I still need to make some alterations to this model as the WHR coaches have gangways to allow passengers to seamlessly transfer between the carriages.  The more astute amongst you will be aware that my carriages are actually too long to be accurate r...