Bron Effans

  I have had a fairly productive summer break from work. My time has been divided by various jobs on the layout and catchup repairs from the lockdown period. Ultimately, I had set myself some targets for the summer period to improve the running of the layout and to sort out the ongoing issues with the rolling stock. I have managed to finish the vast majority of these jobs and have finished a few other extra things that were not in the original plan. The biggest of which is the new retaining wall at the west end of the line.  I have been trying to give the layout a more unified look and feel that reflects the location that I am trying to model. I found some inspiration from the creation of a group on Facebook concerned with modelling the Corris Railway. I took ideas from this group and set about building a retaining wall along the northern slope to disguise the poor effort on the slope. The first layer of styrene is laid. I used styrene to make thin slabs and built them up with...

  I have undertaken a rationalisation of the stock that I have for the layout of late as there was much more stock than was wholly necessary for the railway. A clearout was necessary. To make the decision process easier I applied the following three questions to each item of stock under consideration. 1. Do I use it? 2. Does it fit on the railway 3. Can all locomotives haul it? To that end, I took a good look at my rolling stock and put them under the scrutiny.  Ultimately, I have dispensed with the Lynton and Barnstaple liveried coaches. The Vale of Rheidol Brake van and I am currently looking for a home for the three BR Maroon coaches that I completed last month. As nice as they are, they are far too big for the layout and many of the locomotives cannot haul them unsupported. It is sad given the effort that I have put into them but I did not really think they would be as heavy as they were.  If anyone would like to give them a good home please don't hesitate to get in t...

  I have been adding to the scenery on the days where the temperatures were more reasonable. I took this opportunity to build on the scenery around the station. I had obtained some lichen and other scenic bits from my parents house. These materials were used on my childhood 00 gauge layout and I thought it would be a good idea to put them to use around the layout. I used a 50:50 mix of water and pva glue to spruce up the older materials. I dipped the lichen into the glue mix and then into a tray of scatter material. The next few images show how it has made the lichen look more like realistic bushes.  This is an aspect of the hobby that I am not overtly keen on doing, but I am happy with how these small additions have elevated the level of the scenery around the station.  I will be adding more to this blog over the next couple of weeks. There has been a lot of progress and I haven't really kept up with the updates. Suffice to say that pretty much everything I had planned f...

  I have found been hunting for a kit that could be used to represent the coaches that are used on the Corris Railway. I wanted something that could be used to match with the new Tattoo locomotive and used with the Talyllyn outline stock. I had sold the original short bogie set to make room on the roster for these new carriages.  I was impressed by the quality of these kits and set about building them. There are some quite noticeable differences between these kits based on the Innisfail Tramway and those of the Corris Railway. My aim was to use them as a resemblance as they have a single doorway and two vestibules for passengers. I did not see the need to adapt the kits for my aims and I found the kits detailed enough to pass as older coaching stock. I put the kits together fairly quickly and primed them with Humbrol primer. The bogies for these kits are some of the best that I have built for a plastic kit. The wheels were free running and the couplers were easy to attach....

I apologise for not posting as regularly recently. I am on my summer break from work and that has meant that house jobs and other things have come to the fore. I am working through the list of summer jobs for the layout and those for my house.  After several weeks of pondering and debating on what to do with the newly acquired carriages, I took the plunge and set about the refitting of the Austrian carriages. The initial plan was to repaint them into BR Blue and Grey however something was holding me back from travelling down that road. I decided to go down the more traditional BR Maroon route after seeing a picture online that showed a maroon dining car. Image taken from Google. This image prompted me to begin the process due to the recessed doors looking the part. I took the carriage to pieces and set about removing the printed on details using a fibre glass scratching brush. I then used Railmatch BR Maroon spray to add two coats on to the carriages.  I masked off the carriag...

I have finished work for the summer and have decided that it is high time I spent some quality time on the layout. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed in order to make sure it is fully functional.  Electrics I find myself being haunted by the ghost of poor electrical fidelity. There is a weak link in the circuit around the points. I am intending to solve this using some proper track cleaning materials. The track has not had any proper use due to there being a considerable lack of power to the northern platform and the siding. This all stems from my over exuberant use of pva glue when I ballasted the track. I plan to get some proper track cleaning solution to sort this out and hopefull restore the running to what it used to be like. I am guilty of neglecting this aspect of the railway but due to lockdown I haven't been able to go out and purchase the items I need to resolve these issues. Carriages I have been looking through the very large selection of...

I was very fortunate to be able to purchase a U class locomotive from a good friend in the 009 group. It is an old liliput model and was one of the mainstays on the layout, when I first started. However, age caught up with it and it stood dormant on the layout for a good 9-10 months due to a major failure that constituted it coming to an abrupt halt with a horrid stench emanating from the chassis.  I left it to one side for a while and did some research on how to service motors and also fix them. I will be honest and say that electrics and mechanics are not a strong suit of mine, so I took my time.  So to the efforts of last friday, when I set about trying to get her going again. I started by taking the chassis to pieces to inspect it's condition. The motor looked in a good state but the sheer amount of muck and grime that was caked on the gearshaft, pickups and gears was alarming. It took me a good half hour of careful cleaning and scraping of the gunk....