*Fy Merlen Bach*

Winter is coming…The phrase that spawned hundreds of cringeworthy internet memes. To me it means that any model making I do will be confined to the basement of our little house. There will be no baseboards built, and no models spray painted. Because it will be too cold to work in the garage. There will be days when it will even be too cold to walk down to the garage, let alone work in it. 

So, like a student cramming for an exam. I need to get some things ready for working on in the dark days of winter. First up, is “Merlod Bach” or Little Pony. My version of the LocoRemote “Tiny” that I was inspired to buy whilst reviewing the real thing at the National Railway Museum in York, whilst on vacation in the UK.

I decided to go with a new name. A Welsh name. Principally because I had been inspired by the foundry at the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, and wanted to keep the Welsh theme going. The Ffestiniog Railway has Welsh Pony, and I thought Little Pony was an appropriate name given the diminutive size of the real thing.

With the temperature being a balmy 55 degrees on Sunday I gave the main body parts of “Merlod” a coat of primer.

And so it begins

Tiny comes 3D printed in Black, and I am certain that I don’t want a Black locomotive. If steam locomotives aren’t Black, then they’re Green. 

As you know, I’m in America, so the chances of buying a can of GWR Brunswick Green are next to impossible. Even more vexing was the fact that my local hobby shop only had Tamiya Green paints. Dark Green seemed the simplest colour to go for. So the boiler and water tank were sprayed Dark Green, the other parts Black. Then it started to rain, curtailing my painting activities for the day.

Colours.

Only the major parts were sprayed as I’ll test fit the other parts before I decide when, how, and what colours to paint them.

But with the main body parts sprayed I couldn’t resist the temptation, and I just had to test fit them to see how “Merlod Bach” was going to look in Green.

I think it’s going to look quite good. Don’t you?

*My Little Pony*

Intermission.

As you can see, a pause in the project has been reached. My unfamiliarity with the scale and the size of the items I’m planning to recreate, has caused me to sit back and think about the design and the layout. 

I know my furnace will be about the size of a Pringles tube. I know I’d really like the layout to have an area of no more than four square feet. I have an idea of what I’d like the scene to look like. But will everything work together? This then is a first sketch of what I’d like.

First thoughts

You can clearly see which holiday snap of mine influences it.

Influence

It contains the elements I’d like to see. The stone walls. The furnace. An open roof space to show the joists and timbers. A wagon turntable. For no other reason than I like them and I’ve never recreated one. Patterns, moulds and other casting accoutrements strewn all over the place. One detail that I’d really like to include to see how many notice it. Is to have a pattern and mould for the window frames. It was something that we noticed at Llanberis. Back in its heyday they must have made everything there, and I mean everything. There was even the pattern for the window frames on display, right next to a window containing the cast frame. All in all, the foundry display at Llanberis was quite remarkable, and has certainly made quite an impression on me. 

You will notice one thing missing from my sketch that is in the photo, and that’s the crane. That’s one thing I really can’t visualize the size of. So I’ve left it out for the minute. Though a crane that could pick something off a wagon and place it on the foundry floor would be a great working feature. It’s a feature I’ve recreated before on Whinny Lane in Gn15 and that went down very well at shows.

The Whinny Lane crane

The layout really needs to have the facility for a continuous run when running at a show. So that when I get distracted by the public, the train can run in circles. As long as there is activity on a layout people are happy. When I’m running a shunting layout and I am pulled into conversation, I need someone to step in to take over seamlessly so trains can run and I can talk. There have been several times lately with the 16mm scale layout, when people tried to engage me in conversation as I was pushing the skip up to the tipper, and my concentration was focused on that. It may have made me look standoffish and anti-social. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

A quick draft of a track plan using the geometry of Chris Rennie’s LocoRemote track pieces as a guide, shows that it might fit in an area of 3’6 x 2’. But does it “fit”?

A track plan

How much space is there in front of the mouth of the furnace? What size of mould could you fit between the furnace and the track to recreate a casting process vignette? Can I fit a crane in? Will the geometry of the track allow me to fit everything where I’ve drawn it? 

The track is drawn at the width of the track gauge, with tighter radius curves hidden off scene. As you can see, the track runs pretty close to the baseboard edges. It may well be too close. The grid squares are one inch. So you can see that the track comes within one inch of the edge. 

Clearly some track is needed so I can see if everything will fit. The LocoRemote track is available as a free download for those who have 3D printers. I don’t have a printer myself, but there is an ever-growing band of modellers who do. So I asked one of them nicely if they’d be able to print some sections of track for me and they kindly agreed. 

Their printer is working away as I type, and as soon as I receive the package of track, I will be able to see what fits where and I can move on to the next stage of the layout design.

In Praise of the Pringles Tube.

What is one of the most versatile things in the model railway hobby that has nothing to do with the hobby?

How overlooked is this humble item?

That’s right. The Pringles tube. The cylinder that holds those processed potato snacks has many varied uses in the hobby. Who amongst us uses them to store styrene rod and strip? I do. I have one for rod, one for strip, one for angle and one for misplaced offcuts.

Styrene storage

The cylindrical section has many uses for structures on layouts. Grain elevators in H0 scale for example. Slice them down in height and they’ll make big oil storage tanks in N. I’m sure many will have used them as the base for other things for a layout.

Now I have discovered something new for them to be the basis for. A cupola blast furnace in 7/8ths inch to the foot scale. 

That’s right. This container is a good size for the central feature for this new micro layout.

How on earth did I discover this?

I had spent a lot of time studying the photo that I took of the foundry at Llanberis looking at the detail in the furnace trying to work out the size of it. I wished I’d taken more photos. My best guess for the size was three feet in diameter, maybe a bit more. I didn’t even know anything about blast furnaces to have an idea.

Luckily, I was saved by James Waterfield and Volume 1 of his study of the railways of Sir Arthur Heywood. To start with, that’s where I learnt the name. Cupola Furnace. The furnace was discussed and the iron making process too. Sir Arthur’s furnace was described as being small. The capacity was barely enough to cast two locomotive cylinders at once. A dimension of 2’ 3” outside diameter was mentioned, and along with an annotated drawing of a furnace that was enough to get me thinking. 

A quick measure of my photo showed that this furnace was larger than that. Is it three feet? Maybe, but likely more than that. Perhaps four feet. I don’t know. Three feet six inches diameter seems a pretty reasonable compromise. That would put the charging floor (another term I learned from James’ Book) seven to eight feet off the ground. Which looked that it was about right. A three foot six diameter furnace it was then.

All this thinking made me peckish. I reached for, (you guessed it,) the Pringles. 

Hang on a moment… this is a cylinder… what size is it?

I found a ruler. 74mm. In 7/8ths inch scale, a foot is 22.225mm that makes the Pringle tube approximately three feet four inches in diameter (about one metre in new money). That’s seems pretty close to what I was thinking, and good enough to start to size things up. 

I think that’s a pretty good comparison don’t you?

This simple discovery really helped the design process to come together. The ideas as you can expect, came quickly, and a mock up was quickly put together.

The first mock up

I sat in front of this scene and stared at it for an absolute age. I got quite lost in it, getting a feel for atmosphere. Already I feel better about the size of things and the possibility of a true micro in 7/8ths inch scale. The old baseboard I used is 36” x 14” (915 x 355mm) and the short train fits in there quite well with the furnace, and I was prompted to do a quick sketch.

I think this all shows some promise. I have no track plan right now, and that’s pretty important, but the mock up definitely shows that things should fit in pretty well.

To think that this morning I had I little to no idea at all what to do. I had no feel for the size and bulk of things, until I came across a Pringles tube. 

It’s amazing how things can come together, isn’t it?

Scribblings and scratchings on the paper…

Planning a true micro layout in such a large scale really is the proverbial “quart into a pint pot” challenge. It would be easy to go over the four square feet limit and and produce something micro in spirit. But it is the four square feet micro layout limit that is the true challenge. Let’s see how things work out. The first thing is put together a couple of “inspiration sheets” something to draw on for ideas.

Inspiration sheet 1.

Sheet 1 has a couple of my holiday snaps from the foundry at Llanberis, which are the real inspiration for the layout. The others are Google Earth screen shots of the DeWinton Works in Caernarfon. The foundry was in the square building. There is even a plaque on the wall outside that marks its historic status. As a brick building, to me it doesn’t have the character of the stone built foundry at Llanberis.

What really grabbed me though was the arrangement of the single storey buildings along the road. Fitted tightly between the road and the riverside. I was told that these buildings were also part of the DeWinton works. But that could just have been a story told to me by a local taking my money for parking there, as we took a trip on the Welsh Highland Railway. In my minds eye, I can see an interesting layout based around these buildings with cutaway walls around the outside so you see into the buildings and watch the train pass through various store rooms etc; much like a dolls house. At 7/8ths inch to the foot scale we are in dolls house modelling territory. It would be an interesting crossover between the modelling spheres.

Inspiration sheet 2

Sheet 2 shows some interesting scenes at Horwich and Crewe works. Having the railway run between buildings, inside and out appeals to me. This would be an avenue I’d like to explore. The tiny wagons in the images makes me wonder if the wagons I have aren’t too big. Smaller wagons would have a positive effect on my T.L.U. Making them shorter.  

Toying with the idea of Chris Mears overlap concept. Indoor foundry and outdoor scene.

Now I just start scribbling, putting bits together. It’s so very difficult with no idea of sizes of things. It’s almost like I need to build the loco and wagons and some structures to get a feel for things. Making little tools is fun. But it doesn’t contribute much to knowing the size of the layout. 

Do I run the track around a corner?

I think I have an idea of what I want to do. It’s just getting the elements into a coherent whole now.

Sprouting ideas

That was a lot of information to process in that stream of consciousness that holds the key to this next layout. So let’s break it down.

A minimum gauge railway. So we are talking 7/8ths inch to the foot and 32mm gauge to represent an 18” gauge line.

The purpose of this railway is to transport materials and finished items around a smaller sized foundry. Items like signs, gear wheels, and window frames. 

The trains would be short, one or two wagons, Wagons would carry materials such as casting sand, patterns, perhaps coal and iron ore for the furnace as well.

A particular project I’m interesting in for scratch building is one of the foundry waste wagons/tippers like those built by Sir Arthur Heywood for his Duffield Banks works. One is preserved in the narrow gauge museum at Tywyn on the Talyllyn Railway. There are drawings by Mike Decker in Volume 1 of James Waterfield’s excellent study of the work of Sir Arthur. There was even a similar sort of wagon at on display at Llanberis.

Waste tipper wagon of some description at the National Slate Museum.

One absolute must for the rolling stock on the layout is that the wagons must run on curly spoke wheels, I find them very relaxing to watch as a wagon passes.

Even at rest, I find curly spoke wheels calming

With the concept solidifying, it’s time to start to take a look at what I’m getting myself into.

What have I got myself into?

Just what have I got myself into? This is an extremely sobering image. What you see here is my LocoRemote kit of “Pet”, driver Alf, and a couple of wagons that I made back when I first dabbled in 7/8ths. They’re all big. Alf himself is about 6” (150mm) tall. My standard T.L.U. (Train length unit) that I plan my layouts around will be 18” inches (450mm). I like trains to be able to travel several times their own length on a layout, three times is the minimum, four is better. At three TLU’s the baseboard should be four feet (1220mm) long. I’m getting my first inkling of the size involved. My visions of what I can fit in a micro layout space need to be re-evaluated as I start proper planning.

Germination.

To refresh. I have seen these two things. Yet at the moment they are nothing more than unrelated holiday snaps.

Disparate scenes with no link

You are probably thinking to yourself. “I know what it is! I know his next project!” But I don’t. I am enjoying trips on the Ffestiniog Railway on holiday, and fighting the urge to buy a Kato/Peco “Prince” in 009 from the Harbour Station shop. Then when I get home, I’m preparing Bontoft’s for exhibition. I’m not thinking about the next project. 

Having got Bontoft’s ready in plenty of time, my idle hands needed something to do and so I tried making tools in 7/8ths inch scale. The work I’ve done with Bontoft’s made me ridiculously confident in my abilities. The tools were described earlier in the blog. You can refresh your memory here.

Tool time

Still, there’s no link forming between these tools and the other two images. 

Yet. 

Fast forward a week and I’ve now completed the Randolph show and I’m brimming with enthusiasm and confidence. I’ve got to do something. 

I have to create. I laid out some O gauge track on a board based on an old Neil Rushby boxfile layout from years back. I rued not buying Prince in 009 a few weeks earlier. I stared at a blank baseboard. I looked at nearly every piece of rolling stock I have hoping that something would leap out at me. I have to build something. That I can’t get a spark of inspiration to build something is so frustrating. It’s “writers block”. But for model railways.

Thanks Neil Rushby

Eventually my brain stopped working. I had to sit down and relax. I turned to YouTube and one of my favourite TV shows of all time. Time Team.

If you’re not familiar with the show. A group of Archaeologists have three days to conduct an exploratory dig on a site somewhere. The show ran for 20 years. For 20 years families would spend Sunday evenings watching a group of people digging in a field. Items of national importance have been found. History books have been rewritten, and some unforgettable television moments have been broadcast. It’s a show I can lose myself in.

On this particular day, I re-watched the episode from the Blaenafon in South Wales. Their task was to find the World’s first Railway Viaduct built in 1790. It carried a horse worked line that moved coal to the first Blast Furnaces. Twenty-five years later, the viaduct had disappeared. The show is a remarkable exploration of what the Industrial Revolution did to the landscape.

As a part of the show, they set up a small blast furnace inside one of the original buildings to recreate the iron making process. It was a small furnace, only a few feet high, not more than two feet in diameter yet they produced enough iron to make a railway wagon wheel.

The penny dropped.

This small portable furnace had produced enough iron to make a wagon wheel. I remembered the furnace at the museum. It was, what 12 feet tall? It too was only a few feet in diameter. How much iron would that produce? There were patterns of all sizes around the foundry walls. Window frames, gear wheels, even signs. 

Within seconds an entire concept flowed out of my brain.

“AminimumgaugerailwayservingasmallfoundryMakingthingslikewindowframesgearwheelssignsandwagonwheelsTherailwaywoulddelivermaterialslikesandcoalandironoreCouldbetransportingfinisheditemsbetweenthefoundryandtheblacksmithsTrainswouldbeshortoneortwosmallwagonsHowaboutoneofthoseHeywoodfoundrywagonsliketheoneinthemuseumatTywynIalreadyhaveaflatwagonbuiltCurlyspokewheelsDammitifyouwantedtobecleveryoucouldputredLEDsinthemodelfurnacetorepresenttheglowfromtheironmaking.”

It’s a good starting point…

 

The planting of seeds

For me, after a successful show, there’s an incredible high. As sure as night follows day. After positive interactions with people at a show and a well running layout, I come away full of enthusiasm and positive ideas. I’m ready for the next great model railway adventure to begin.

Except I have no idea where that adventure will lead me. Bontoft’s is essentially complete. There’s no need for an extension. It was never designed for one. I have a hankering for a couple of other loco’s. There’s plans for a Hudson and a Simplex. But I’m in no hurry. But I’m so full of enthusiasm, I need to do something to channel the energy. 

While on vacation in the UK recently, I saw a couple of unrelated things that may lead to something.

The first was at the National Railway Museum in York. A place I’ve been many, many times. I first went within a week or two of its opening back in 1975, (I was I only 12 at the time). Many of the exhibits I’ve seen before. Some things I’d forgotten, some things never registered with me on previous visits.

This time I paid attention to “Pet”. The John Ramsbottom designed, 18” gauge 0-4-0T. This loco and its brothers shuttled around LNWR Crewe works, doing what modern fork lift trucks would do. Transporting tools, supplies, and items around the workshops. 

The delightful, diminutive, PET

“Pet” is one of those locomotives that never really registered with me back in my earlier visits. It was just a black blob. However, I do recall that when Springside Models brought out their 09 model of “Wren” from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s Horwich Works, I was intrigued enough by the space saving qualities of a layout using minuscule prototypes that I bought the kit. But I never developed the idea further. 

In the intervening 50 years, I learned all about minimum gauge railways. The work of Sir Arthur Heywood. The Sand Hutton Light Railway. The Vitacress railway in Dorset. Subjects that fascinated me and led to a very creative period of layout building in Gn15 with Whinny Lane and Purespring Watercress.

I posted the picture of Pet on my model railway Facebook page saying how I was reminded of Chris Rennie’s LocoRemote kit of Pet when he had released it earlier in the year. 

Wouldn’t you know it? The first person to comment on the post was Chris, saying that he still had a last one, and did I want it. I couldn’t back out after that. So I arranged to buy it and a driver “Alf” from David Clavey. 

At this point, I just want to say a huge thanks to Chris (and David) for working together to send things to me in the USA. There are many cottage industry model railway suppliers who won’t ship abroad, what with Brexit and the poor quality of shipping to the USA. (I’ve lost many packages in transit post Covid from different sources). Chris will send things to me tracked and signed for, so there is a trail to follow. David happily sends his items to Chris who then puts everything in one package. To them I am eternally grateful. There would not have been a Bontoft’s Sand Quarry layout without their help.

Anyway, in the middle of the night when I was jet-lag stricken. I’d surf the web looking at pictures of Horwich and Crewe Works internal rail systems, seeing if I could get inspired. I was inspired, but these huge railway workshops didn’t seem to offer much for a micro layout builder.

Look Ian, you’re supposed to be enjoying yourself on holiday. Get back to that.

So to North Wales, a place I have great fondness for. I have adored the Ffestiniog Railway since childhood, and the majestic Snowdonian vistas fill me with awe every time I see them. 

One day, we decided to check out the National Slate Museum in Llanberis. Somewhere I’d never been. I really wanted to see the wagon on a Blondin cable hanging above the flooded Vivian Quarry nearby. The museum is free, it’s a no brainer to visit.

That wagon perched over the Vivian Quarry

The Slate Museum is a fascinating place, full of inspiration for a slate quarry based model railway if you so desire. I was fighting the urge all the time while there, I can tell you. 

As we toured this fascinating place, we entered the foundry, with its furnace and display of patterns, workshop tools and equipment.

The foundry.

The seeds had been planted. I just hadn’t realized it yet.