Yet another Tuesday has come and gone - almost another month gone, as well. I'm sure time is relative - the older you get the faster it seems to go (or half the time you forget... so time goes twice as quickly)
Time seemed to go quickly on Tuesday evening, but that was because we were enjoying the company and food! (Louise made a pizza for us - I think she is competing with Pat to see who can get the biggest variety of ingredients onto the crispy crust... they just get better and better!)
The meeting was at Charles' again, and we were treated to one of his eclectic collections of amusing and informative video clips taken from the Internet.
Colin had been busy through the week working on his gondolas for the fairground. Couple of pictures below showing the progress. Last week the comparison coin was a twenty pence piece, but due to a slight bounce in the economy, and financial state not being quite as gloomy, we have gone back to using a pound coin...

Here are three of the gondolas in all their red and gold splendour :

Next week we hope to see a selection of passengers!

Also next week it is the weekend of the annual Login Extravaganza, The annual Login and Cardi-Bach exhibition. Obviously not all of our readers will be able to make it, but we really look forward to meeting those who do manage to make their way to Login Station. It's on for two days, so you have no excuse for not turning up!

Hwyl fawr, Shaun.

I was going to write this on Wednesday morning. Now it's Friday evening - no excuse, except that I was busy editing a report on the Cardi-Bach walk that took place a week or so ago. Colin had kindly provided the photographs of the walk, so I cropped and sized them for inclusion in Emyrs report.
Back to matters in hand.
Tuesday night saw us congregating at Pat's (can four congregate...?)
Login layout was discussed and looked at - it is stored at Pats at the moment, as we are still having work done in Ty-Nant, and unfortunately there is no room in Pats to set up the Login board to work on it. No matter. We will get it over here next week and set to.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Colin had received brass nameplates from 'Narrow Planet' for one of the 009 locos  - couple of macro close ups:

The camera lense in this next pic was literally 3/4" away from the loco. The brass plaque is no more than 5mm wide...

Once again Colin is the only one who has been productive on the modelling front, continuing with his fairground traction engine and Galloper, which is now a dragon themed gondola ride.
The second traction engine has had a paint job:

For the benefit of our multi-national followers, that coin in the top picture, a twenty pence piece, is 20mm in diameter, which makes that little engine less than 2" in length. The wheels go round, but no steam...

The fairground ride is slowly taking shape, but the rude lady seems to have disappeared.

The gondolas are just plonked roughly in place for the picture, before being given drive poles, passengers (possibly a naked lady, but who knows?) and dragons head figureheads. Here is a prototype:

The evening was rounded off with breaded chicken and a home-made pizza, which had mushrooms, chorizo, anchovies, olives, garlic, peppers, cheese, and somewhere underneath, a thin crisp crust...
Thank you Pat.
As a footnote, we now join our ChufferDuffer blog followers from USA, Canada, Russia, India, Brazil, Botswana and China, in being independent. We voted today to get rid of Europe after forty years of them dragging on our coat-tails.
Could be a foolish move - time will tell.

Nothing to report about the Duffers this week, as I was away for a few days in the Brecon Beacons
However,...During my absence the Cardi-Bach Society had a walk from Login to Cwm Miles - it seems that in excess of twenty walkers ran riot around the Taf Valley. Luckily Emyr our Chairman managed to herd them all together in time for an excellent feast of Dawn Towns wonderful cakes and tea. Details are only just filtering through, so I will post later when I get a coherent report... 

Well, another week gone in a flash. Glorious weather here in West Wales, which meant gardening rather than modelling.
Last night we met at Colins, and just sat around and chewed the fat - actually pizza, sausage rolls and crisps. They are all rather fatty, so I guess that first sentence is true in some respects.
We also enjoyed several video clips of The Dorset Steam Fair, and a couple on steam cars, which proved more interesting than you would think. Colin had actually done some constructive work in the past week, on his scratch built fairground Galloper, or Gondoler - not sure which just yet, as it's in a very early stage of construction.
I didn't put anything in the pictures for size comparison, but to give you an idea, all the posts are cocktail sticks...

Front back and top views.
And if there are any followers of the blog who are under sixteen, dont study the next picture too closely...

How she got there and what she is doing there we have yet to find out.
All the best for this week,
Shaun.

Nothing much to report - I just thought I would change the Main picture - This German loco was on the Merthyr to Brecon line when we all went up for a day trip a couple of years ago.

The Tuesday meeting was hosted by Chas last night, so it was a break from railway matters - instead we watched a selection of video clips on motoring related inventions and innovations, the evening culminated in a delicious spread with an Italian theme prepared by Louise, Charles' wife.
Once again talk turned to putting the world to rights, and lamenting the falling standards in society... I think the four of us are getting old!

During the evening Colin showed us his work-in-progress on a second showmans engine that he is constructing - he needs two, as he is also scratch building a fairground 'Galloper' ride, which required two steam engines to operate.
(He didn't make the pound coin, though I'm sure he could)

On to railway matters, I fitted a new light into the Cardigan signal box, as the last one didn't seem to emit enough light. The new one could be a tad too bright, but another resistor will probably solve that.
Two images. (The box was scratch built - by who else but the versatile Colin!)

Finally got around to replacing the old cardboard boxes that we use to protect and transport the Teifi Gorge layout. The rather posh handles were reduced from £8 a pair to 99p when B & Q had the closing down sale of the Cardigan branch...

Thats it for this week folks - thanks for dropping in.