The Secret Can Be Told

If you've been reading this blog over the last couple of months you may recall I have started work on building a second model of the NWNGR replica carriage 24.

I never did say why, and that was quite deliberate. Because I was keeping a secret.

A few months ago Himself and I were approached by a director of the FR Company - the world's oldest independent railway company, as I'm sure you know - and told about a plan to present a gift to the outgoing chairman, Dr John Prideaux, featuring 4mm / 009 models of some of the heritage rolling stock he has played a major role in restoring / recreating.

The snag was while it was simple to buy models of Welsh Pony and the 'Curly Roofed Van' there was no readily available model of 24.

Could we make another to be part of the presentation?

We said we'd be delighted to help, of course, but there was no way we'd be able to turn it round in a matter of a few weeks.

However, as lifetime supporters of the railway, we felt we should assist in any way we could, so I suggested that as it was such a special request, for someone who's given so much to the FR for many years, we could donate our own model of 24 as part of the gift.

It's not as if we're likely to need it to run on Bron Hebog again, and the Dinas project is likely to be a couple of years away.

Dr Prideaux was presented with the models, in a lovely display box, at a dinner in his honour earlier this week, and I gather he was delighted with them.

So that's lovely.

And I suppose it shows that volunteering for the railway can come in many forms.

In the meantime I've made a wee bit more progress on the replacement which I've cast in resin from my own styrene masters.

The sides and ends have been bonded into a box and I've cut out the pieces for the chassis and the false ceiling.

Resin Carriage Sides

Body sections for the 'replica of the replica' of carriage 24 have been cast with moderate success.

This is the first time I've attempted to cast a large piece with quite so much detail as a traditional compartment carriage with matchboarding.

The side your see here are the third and fourth attempts.

One the first the mix was not quite right and it never quite hardened properly.

The second was too brittle  - which is an issue I've had with the brand of resin I've got in stock at the moment - and it snapped while being de-molded.

On these there were a couple of small blemishes where air bubbles had become trapped and the detail was missing, but I've been able to patch it up by inserting some pieces of styrene strip.

The flash filling the windows has been roughly cut out although some detailed work with a needle file will be needed still.

Some small breaks occurred as I was removing the flash, but they were very clean and were easily bonded back together and the sides remain as strong as if they'd never happened.

They won't look as clean and neat as a fully scratch built body, but with Bron Hebog in storage and the Dinas project still on the drawing board nobody is about to scrutinise it closely any time soon.