The Moel Rhos runs along a “ledge” about 6” above the lawn, but my neglectful gardening has resulted in the grass by the wall growing so tall it not only reaches the railway but dwarfs it.
I ran the Millie twice, on the first occasion I ran it back up to the steam up area after a few circuits and by extraordinary coincidence clever driving it ran out of gas right beside my steam up table. But the second time I had to send the Bolton out to rescue it.
Simon
Moel Rhos
Despite the new station site still being elevated a couple of feet of the ground (which I will bring up in due course) the nettles are already above track height… There has been a serious lack of weeding in May!
No. 2 Chough had had a reversing problem but upon steaming up to investigate today it had gone away – steamed up twice, no issues at all…
Simon
Moel Rhos
It’s a year since I knocked a hole for the railway to enter the shed and it had always been my intention for this to provide storage for keeping trains coupled up and on the rails to get things going more quickly when I wanted to run something… but since I’d got a couple of yards of track under cover, I lost the motivation to take things further. Even just having one train ready to go makes a huge difference.
But I’ve finally got round to bringing the line round the corner and making my train shelves – these were inspired by the 4mm scale cassette fiddle yard system – but out of necessity (it’s not a big shed!) the cassettes are stored vertically. It’s a space saver and also a money saver – no need to shell out £50 for a pair of points for each storage siding… I’ve ordered enough angle for a couple more shelves already.
Trains sit on aluminium angle gauged at 32mm of course, I’ve printed a flap to sit between them, this firmly locates the cassette with the approach road…
But when it folds back so you can remove the cassette, it acts as a buffer stop, preventing trains from diving onto the workbench…
And on the cassette side of things I’ve printed these pegs that slot into a hole to stop unbraked trains sliding off if I don’t manage to keep the shelves perfectly horizontal as I lift them.
The weak link is, of course, the shelves themselves – they’re wooden (decking board) and some have already warped… in a damp shed there’s no guarantee they’ll keep their shape. I had considered trying to construct them entirely out of aluminium but these seemed like a lot of designing and manufacturing so I went ahead with these as a proof of concept. They also need side rails, which should be easy enough when I’ve decided how best to implement them, and ideally handles so that the centre of gravity is much lower than the point from which one lifts the shelf…
It has occurred to me that a solution to the material issue would be to replace the wood with… eco-ply (aka Flicris) although I’m not sure how resistant to warping it will be. But something to experiment with.
Simon
Moel Rhos
As I’ve mentioned before, the Doctor, being a time traveller, is not out of place on any garden railway in any period… indeed, one of the consequences of time travel is that there may be several of him. I mentioned on the email that after I’d printed a John Hurt that I’d discovered the Eaglemoss figurines are 1/21 scale and I picked up a few for around a fiver each – which is remarkable given they are painted and actually pretty close to 1/19 scale, extremely well detailed and very nicely finished. Unfortunately, for those whose railways are out of bounds to Time Lords, it may not be easy to convert them to ‘regular’ people as they are cast from a rather brittle resin (the Doctor has lost his head already in a couple of his incarnations). I would also recommend cutting the figures from their pedestals with a razor saw rather than trying to prize them out… I managed the latter only once without damaging some shoes.
Anyway, here, then, are the telesnaps from Doctor Who and the Easter of Doom:
The Doctor, fresh from space-sailing with The Eternals, pays a visit to the Moel Rhos railway in the 1950s, where he pays his respect to The Easter Bunny.
Some time later, and looking a little different after his misadventure on Androzani Minor, he takes a break on the Moel Rhos after exposing the Zeiton-7 scandal. Naturally, he wants to drive himself…
Later still, and with a different face following the Rani’s attempt to create a time manipulator, the Doctor pays another visit to the Moel Rhos when he finds himself in South Wales in the 50s on a holiday he won thanks to being the tenth billionth customer at Navarino Spaceport.
Having been shot in San Fransisco on the last day of 1999, the Doctor changed again, and later still he seeks escape from the Time War on the Moel Rhos where he is clearing the line of the chickens, who have to take care of egg delivery on the 364 days when The Bunny is not on duty. (I ran low on filament and rather than replacing the spool straight away or risking running out during a big job, I tried using it up by printing a chicken and when there was still some left another chicken, and then another… I now have 9 chickens, most still needing paint, and inspired by Peter I’m going to need to design a chicken wagon.)
Finally, the Doctor, in the midst of the Time War, weary of the temporal flux created by the conflict’s multiple paradoxes, lowers his guard whilst visiting the Moel Rhos and is unsuspectingly about to fall foul of the Blinovich Limitation Effect…
Running in the sunshine yesterday I realised the line had no Easter Bunny (not counting the 4m high monsters who visit occasionally) so I downloaded a rabbit from Thingiverse and printed him. Here he is riding in luxury on a Binnie flat wagon…
Simon
Rheilffordd Moel Rhos
The Moel Rhos permanent way team completed track laying on the new station formation this morning, so I have put together the most boring video ever, recording the first run round in my garden. I’ve even included my big hand coupling and changing points, it’s not an action packed thriller but I am very excited to be able to do this…
Simon
It’s Good Friday! So the traditional* hot cross bun train is in service on the Moel Rhos.
Simon
* if you do it twice it’s a tradition, right?
Trackbed for the run-around loop now in place for the new station (although I’ve further supports to add when I replenish my supplies of drainpipe). There will be an island platform in the middle. The loop should be long enough to allow two trains of 3 coaches of up to 2’ to pass comfortably.
Simon
Moel Rhos
Since it was not just dry but sunny today I’ve made some progress on Moel Rhos Phase 3 (yes, I know I haven’t finished Phase 2 which is around 5 years overdue, but I’m not big on doing things in order).
The photograph shows the end of the line as is and the new trackbed running through what will become the station area.
As a general rule I don’t remember to take a ‘before’ picture until I’m taking the ‘after’ picture and alas, today is no exception.
The trackbed here is larch (breaking Tony W’s rule 1) and I am experimenting with using plastic drainpipe uprights (the idea being to use plastic where there is contact with the ground). Around a foot of 2×2 is inserted into the top of the drainpipe and this is fixed to the larch trackbed. The 2×2 can then be adjusted up or down to get the level, before screwing through the plastic into the wood to fix it. It appears to be surprisingly stable!
There is still an inner loop to build and then the ground will be built up beneath as a raised bed.
Simon
Moel Rhos
One of the first things I did when I got my printer, a couple of months back, was of course to download Sir John Hurt and print him at 1:19 scale.
There’s not only a fine drawing of him on Thingiverse, but it allowed me to connect several of my interests – and of course there is no limit to the number of Doctors Who that you can have on a model railway, since (s)he is a time traveller!
Anyway, I’ve only just got round to painting my John-Hurt-Doctor, so here he is:
“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.”
I must admit that although I am getting a little better at faces, I still have great difficulty with the eyes…
Simon
Moel Rhos
Also going through the Moel Rhos printshop today were various of bug boxes I’ve printed based on Andrewlongman’s Thingiverse drawing. I’ve taken his frame but redrawn the sides in Tinkercad to include some slightly different detail, or at least the first and observation (I will do my own drawing of the third too but haven’t got round to it yet)
First – obviously still much to do but here with a couple of coats of primer
Likewise the observation. I’ve opted not to try to print the bar across the middle that supports the mesh, instead I printed a hole and I’ll insert a brass rod.
But then I’ve also gone and adapted the drawing to make a very approximate porthole bug box (yes, there are the wrong number of panels on the ends for the porthole carriage – but this isn’t the Ffestiniog’s coach you understand, it’s the similar vehicle commissioned from Brown, Marshall & Co. by the Rheilffordd Moel Rhos).
And finally, pushing Tinkercad to its absolute limits I mashed the frame around enough to come out with an approximation of the flying bench…
Simon
In the Moel Rhos paint shop, I’ve been priming some of the bits and pieces I printed over Christmas… something it has taken me a while to get to. A coat of primer helps to show up the finish you get off the printer.
Here are two milk churns (by _steve_ on Thingiverse) both printed in PLA the one on the left at 0.18mm resolution and the one on the right at 0.08mm resolution, hopefully you can see the difference in the pic, although in real life at >0.5m away I’m not sure you would. So maybe not the 3x longer print time…
Here are a couple of oil barrels printed in ABS at high res. Unlike the milk churns, whose handles still need a bit of tidying, there’s not much to do here.
Finally a hyper resolution PLA cow. Bit of roughness around the head and back (printed upside down, this is where the supports go). But cows are hairy anyway, right? So I might not bother to clean up too much.
Simon
