A Model Meander – [mee-an-der] noun: a circuitous movement or journey.

Apparently I Renovate in HO Now

One of the changes in my model railway life is my joining up to my local club. I haven’t been a member of a formal club for 25 years so it it a change but a positive one. It gets me out of the house and into the company of fellow modellers as well as provides opportunities to build or rebuild skills.

The club’s HO layout is in a state of completion with ongoing revisions and improvements. There is also a requirement for maintenance. Repairing buildings is apparently going to be one of my things. Today’s subject is a resin barn kit with failing glue joints and a cupped and cracked roof.

I glued the wall joints back together after scraping off old paint and hot glue! (I don’t think I was the first to try to fix this. Hopefully, my repairs will be more durable). I then pried off the old roof pieces and used them as templates to cut new roof panels from corrugated sheet styrene. After adding some internal bracing, I fastened the panels on with CA adhesive, fettled the opening for the cupola casting and made a new roof for it. There was no sign of the original cupola roof anyway.

This is as far as I go during this morning’s roof section so I will be back at it on the regular club night next week. I am looking forward to experimenting with some weathering techniques on what I assure you will be a well worn and rusty roof. Or at least I will be trying for that.

Wales Trip 2025: Day 8 St. Davids to Carmarthen

After a lovely weekend in St. Davids, we headed off to Carmarthen. The plan was to continue on the same bus route to Haverfordwest and take the train from there. This plan collided with the fact that the bus did not run on Sundays. Fortunately, the taxis did and we had a swift and scenic trip through the Pembrokeshire countryside to the station.

The trains do run on Sunday (the bus schedules are published, I just didn’t consider that the route we wanted might not run every day) so off we went. Carmarthen station is a stub ended terminal as beloved of model railway builders and is situated across the River Towy from the ancient town. There is a lovely modern stayed cable footbridge across the river with a good view of the local flock.

We spent the night in an historic coaching inn still doing business and then set off to Swansea the next day. Carmarthen seems to have a good deal of interesting looking pubs and I found myself wishing for more nights there to try them out. I think we are resolved that the next trip with involve more multi-day stays.

The Carmarthen station has a ground frame which is probably quite a common sight to UK travellers but exciting to a Canadian. I took a bunch of photos just in case.

Wales Trip 2025: Days 4-5 Fishguard to St. Davids

Having arrived in Wales the day before, we went off to a place that does not and never did have rail service. St. Davids, Pembrokeshire is the smallest city in the UK by virtue of it’s historical cathedral rather than its population of 2000. It is a lovely place in the country and a popular holiday destination. It was quite busy on the weekend we were there.

We got there by bus operated by Traws Cymru. It was a swift trip down narrow, stone wall lined roads at speeds I wouldn’t undertake in a small car. We were happy to leave it to the professional who, having quizzed us about our destination, dropped us off at the corner nearest our hotel with directions thereto. Traws Cymru has an app which allows you to monitor buses in real time as well as purchase tickets or you can tap on and off on the day.

Spending two nights allowed for more sightseeing and we hiked a bit of the Welsh Coastal Path from St. Nun’s to Porthclais Harbour. I also managed a pint in a pub both nights as well as the night in Fishguard so that part of the plan was on track.

Lever Sandwich with Pickle on the Side

I am continuing my halting progress on the lever frames with a systematic approach to the levers themselves. I had two bits of process that I felt were lacking. Firstly, I needed a way to clamp the 3 layers that make up a lever together so that I could solder them together because holding them in my hands was fiddly and risky. Secondly, I needed a way to clean all the flux off of parts after soldering. Some of the folder assemblies defy easy scrubbing with a toothbrush.

My solution to the clamping problem uses my lovely little Wilton vise. As is, it is not ideal for the task because it is a big chunk of metal aka a heat sink and also flux and solder will do the finish on the jaws no good. I drew on my recently expanded woodworking capability to employ some double sided tape and stripwood to create insulated soft jaws.

That holds the insipient lamination firmly and easily.

To resolve the cleaning problem, I decided to try a chemical approach. Pickling is using some sort of chemical, I think usually an acid, to clean metal. It is commonly used by jewelers and model engineers when silver soldering. Commercial pickles are effective but harsh so I am starting with acetic acid. Acetic acid is widely available as a food additive. It is weaker than commercial pickle solutions but that means it just takes longer.’

To hold my pickle solution, I employed a tub formerly containing locally produced ice cream. (Your container needs to be non-metallic). I mixed 1/3 cup of acid powder with 2 cups of boiling water. After sitting overnight in the solution, I scrub what I can with my old toothbrush and rinse thoroughly with water.

Wales Trip 2025: Day 3 – Rosslare to Fishguard

Having somewhat recovered from our jetlag we arose at an early hour to walk down to the ferry terminal to catch the Stena Lines ferry to Fishguard. The ferry offered a cafe that served breakfast but closed not long after departure. There was a full hold of trucks but the passenger deck was sparsely occupied. A weekday trip in May is clearly not what the facilities were designed for.

We arrived in Fishguard well before check-in time at the pub! but were able to drop off our bags and spend the day wandering over to the twin town of Goodwick and back. We had lunch in the Fishguard station café and I managed to catch one of the trains coming from the ferry terminal station.

Our acquisition of books started at once as per our habit with a book on birds since there are several varieties of corvids hanging about and we had no idea what to call any of them. They can’t all be “crows”.

If the greenery on the embankment wasn’t enough of a “not in Canada” moment, the general front garden enthusiasm was evident.

Adapting Comstock Road

Although it has spent the better part of 3 years stored in pieces, I still have Comstock Road and the intention to complete it. As a New Years’ challenge inspired by Trevor, I set it up along the available wall in my workshop, found the boxes of rolling stock, and ran a short train. All worked gratifyingly well considering that I did not even clean the track. My efforts in the original construction prove durable.

However, the aforementioned available wall is not long enough to the layout as originally designed at 146″. I am about 17″ short of space for leaving it permanently set up. I need to come up with a plan.

Design Goals

Be able to leave something set up so that I can work on it and able to run a train without special effort.
Preserve as much of the existing trackwork as possible.
Not have the layout exceed the available space.

Here is the latest layout plan as it stands.

For design purposes, both ends are assumed to be bounded by walls. Traverser side is not yet so bounded but it will be in the hopefully not to distant future.

Alternatives

I have not made a decision but I find it worthwhile making a list of the possibilities.

Scrap the lot and build anew.
Make no modifications, work on the layout in any two sections at a time, set up elsewhere to operated.
Lop off the required 18″ to make the layout fit. It could be 12″ (1 car length off the traverser end and the remainder off the other. Taking it all off the traverser would reduce it to 1.5 cars.
Build a second, shorter traverser section for home use and keep the existing traverser section for show/deployed use.

My current fancy favours the second traverser implementation. Perhaps a cassette based fiddle yard instead to compensate for the lesser head room? I do need to do some careful measurement and see if the 12″ off one side, 8 off the other would produce a still workable plan.

Just for fun, here is Comstock Road in its new home. You can see the extent of the length problem at lower left.

Wales Trip 2025: Day 2 – Dublin to Rosslare

I have decided I need to systematically title the trip posts. Let’s see how that holds up.

We ended an extended period of wakefulness at a guest house in Rosslare, County Wexford. The harbour is a busy place although not nearly so extensive as the one in Dublin. Our ferry departure was a some ungodly hour local time so we wanted to be in walking distance of the terminal.

We learned that the foot passengers do not embark or disembark on foot but do so via shuttle bus that drives between the passenger terminal and the hold of the ship. This means they do not have to faff about with ramps or keep random civilians from wandering in front of a truck.

Other than arriving by rail, the whole ferry terminal was developed by the railroads including the Great Western in conjunction with their rail businesses. There is still rail service to Fishguard which was our next destination.

Dinner was snacks from Murphy’s SuperValu because we were properly jet lagged.

Leverage, Eventually

On my bench and on my mind is the first of 3 Shropshire & Herefordshire Area Group ( S.H.A.G. ) lever frames. I expressed an interest in fabricating the locking tray for Trevor Marshall’s Bydemill 7mm layout and soon found myself in possession of three kits due to Trevor’s enthusiasm. I am slowly working my way through them while re-learning the art of soldering.

I have reduced the supplied etch from 5 levers to 4 and will do the same to the other two. Two will be ganged together for an 8 lever frame and connected to the locking tray.

My New Year’s resolution is to get these all completed without further delay. Wish me luck.

New Places, New Trains: Wales Trip 2025

Last May, my wife and I finally took a big trip to Wales via Ireland. What with the pandemic, family needing support, renovations and moving, the expected retirement travel has been slow coming. Water fowl linearly arranged, we set off for an epic(for us) 3 week jaunt.

It turned out the that the shortest and least expensive way to get to Wales was to fly from Toronto to Dublin and cross by ferry. We chose to go in via the Rosslare to Fishguard route which meant taking a shuttle bus to George’s Quay in Dublin and a train from Tara Street station to Rosslare Europort.

My collection of photos is uneven but I will share some highlights in separate posts but, yes, there will be more train photos. We travelled mostly by rail and bus. I look forward to a return trip to see some of the places, cough, trains, cough we didn’t manage to fit in as well as a more lingering stay in Ireland.

New Year, New Home, Same Old Guy

It has been (checks notes) 3 and a half years since I last posted. I’m not just over the hill I am clearly picking up speed on the down slope! 😀

Much has happened in the interim, very little of which has been active modelling as I wandered off into model engineering, streaming, woodworking and moving house. Sometimes all at once. I have done some things but had lost the habit of writing them up.

Our household has decamped for a village with a 3 digit population from a city with a 7 digit one. Massive amounts of renovation and side projects later, I finally feel like I have things to write about again. Hopefully there will be a flurry of catch up posts to follow.