Things are getting back to normal now, and we were able to meet up at Llechryd last Tuesday.
I set up 'Teifi Gorge' in the conservatory so that we could give it the once-over before the up coming show at Hermon - more of that later.

The Teifi boards had been stored on end in the garage, and had suffered a little bit from the flooding. Mainly both the village end panels. This was the Cilgerran end:

and below is the St Dogmaels end panel. I had started to clean off the fine coating of mud/silt that had been left behind by the receding water. Luckily not a lot of damage was apparent.

We managed to clean the other end as best we could, and I gave it a quick lick of paint to cheer up the back ground. Pictured below is a shot of the end taken at the Hermon Show:

Pat brought along his 7mmNG diesel loco that we have been featuring on these pages, now resplendent in a paint job, and complete with driver and control panel:

Colins water tower was put in place at St Dogmaels:
This became the most talked about part of the layout on Sunday at the Show - everyone was most intrigued about the realistic water, and a good deal of time was spent explaining how it was achieved!

Colins 'show-and-tell' on Tuesday was his 009 engine shed that he is in the proccess of constructing. He decided that as he had so many 009 locos built, it was time they had a shed!
Built entirely from card, here it is  - at the moment lacking windows and various bits, but you can see the amount of work that has gone into it:

And so on to Sunday - the Hermon Exhibition - 'Rogers Rave-up'. Really well attended, with a whole range of modelling on display. Trains, Trucks, Cars, Tractors, Tanks, working models, static models, Zulu warriors and soldiers, WWI dioramas, WW2 dioramas, every aspect of modelling was represented, as well as a couple of trade stands to cater for the needs of the modeller - plus of course the Fantastic Cafe to cater for the inner modeller. Plenty of pictures on various Facebook sites, so I won't post on here. Thanks to Roger and his team for putting on yet another excellent show!

Hwyl fawr
Shaun.

Last Duffer meeting in October was held at Pat's - it should have been here at Ty Nant, but unfortunately the river Teifi decided to pay us a call a couple of weeks ago, so access was a bit difficult... Compare this picture with the heading photo.
 This was mid afternoon - by six it had reached the house, but too dark to take pictures.

 Next morning:

This was taken the morning after the flood, when the water had receded. You can see the watermark on the garage wall... We are normally 25 foot above the river level. Car and carpets written off, but we were much more fortunate than a lot of other residents.

Back to ChufferDuffers - this blog is about model railways, after all.

The diesel loco that you saw in the last post now boasts a cab. Pat has been busy cutting and glueing Plasticard this past week, and showed us his efforts in place on the  Maes y Gof layout. It has yet to have a roof and a paint job, but it runs superbly, and can be seen in action on Sunday November 18th at the Hermon Model Exhibition.

 Dai the guard is a bit non-plussed, wondering how the engine arrived without a driver

One other victim of the flood was the Teifi Gorge layout - never thought the Teifi would affect it!
The two village boards were stored standing on end on 2" battens - not enough - the water came up a foot. I dried them off in the sunshine 'apres le deluge' and they don't look too bad. I'll test the electrics in the next week or so and hopefully we can show it at Roger's Expo on the 18th.

Hope to see you there,
Shaun.

Time, as ever marches on, and before you know it another month has kicked the bucket... October already...
This Chuffer post would seem to be devoted to Colin, and the Herrington Light Industrial Co., as he seems to be the only one producing stuff at the moment - though Pat is in the proccess of turning out a diesel loco for Maes Y Gof (more of that in a moment)

At our last get-together Col opened up his model box (A margerine container that he uses to hold the latest masterpiece):

  to reveal a water tower for St Dogmaels station, on the Teifi Gorge:

It contains realistic water, and all the necessary controls and valves that are required to dispense water to thirsty locomotives.
Around the back is an array of fire irons and shovels:

I forgot to include something for scale comparison, but I just measured the wooden handled spade, and it is 3/4" high...
The tower is yet to be placed on the layout, but we will be meeting here next week, so I hope to have the layout up here in the workshop for a trial run prior to Rogers Exhibition at Hermon in November.

Other products from the HLI factory - this loco finally came out of the paint shop:

Yet another one to join Colin's stable of 009 motive power. He is threatening to build an 009 layout of his own, as there is no more room on the Teifi Gorge!

Pat brought along the Diesel engine that he is constructing (no photos yet - maybe next week) for Colin to have a go at constructing a cab for it. So to finish, here is a pic of the master at work...

Hwyl Fawr.

Last night saw the September meeting of the Cardi-Bach Railway Society, which I believe has been mentioned before. As the Chuffers are all members, we decided not to have our own meeting this week, as the Cardi-Bach meeting was going to be in the new building, which from now on will be called the Cardi-Bach Heritage Center. Not official yet, as the Society hope to have a proper opening. No brass band or celebrity, but hopefully a bit of a ceremony.

Since the last photographs that I put on here Pete Towns has done wonders, as you can see in the pics below.

Still to be done is the framing of all of the old pictures, and putting the Crymmych arms layout back up, probably in the left hand corner.

Tables and chairs are available for meetings, and can be moved around for presentations and talks, illustrations and vidoes can be shown via the overhead projector, on to the drop down screen above the big Cilgerran sign.
Inside the entrance door is a counter concealing a refrigerator and hospitality crockery etc. Also a coffee/tea urn to provide refreshments for meetings and presentations.

Final view from the back of the Centre, with Chairman Emyr showing a fine carpet embroidered with a railway scene that was gifted by a Llanfyrnach resident, who also donated to the Society a stool that was part of the old station furniture, with 'GWR' stencilled on it.

This together with a lot more pieces of memorabilia will eventually find a home in the Centre.
Many thanks to the kind people who have donated towards the cost of this project. The Society still have a long way to go to help Peter and Dawn with the cost and effort they have put into this project, so donations are still very gratefully accepted.

Come along and visit.

Yesterday, Tuesday 21st, instead of an evening meeting, Colin, Pat and myself had a day up in the hills of Carmarthenshire at Mikes farm, to give him a hand with the big layout.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Mike had no details of the layout - how it was operated, point control, signal control - not even a wiring diagram... There are input sockets for eight controller positions, a power pack (large plastic box) with seven transformers and an H & M duette inside. Several assorted socket outlets, none of which were identified...

We had managed to identify the power supplies for the controllers when we first set up, but the DIN plugs/sockets were an old type, so before going up yesterday I wired new DIN plugs onto 4 controllers, and pre-wired six matching DIN sockets.

After coffee and cake on arrival, we went out into the long garage, and set about our appointed tasks. Me doing wiring, Pat and Colin laying fresh track on a bridging board, and Mike tracing wiring and laying more track.

Here we see the gandy-dancers hard at work with quite a bit of muttering (I'll hold it, you hit it... etc):

Half way down the layout I was working on the inlet sockets (or I would be, if I wasn't taking the picture);

And at the far end was Mikes work station, him being absent - gone to prepare lunch:

The three right hand lengths of track had to be put in, as the original lines had dissapeared some time in the past (we think the layout could be at least thirty years old)

Below is a long shot of the layout, which also illustrates the size of the garage which Mike built back in the spring:

Several empty squares are the bases for assorted buildings that came with the layout, but are stored separately for the time being.
We adjorned for lunch at this stage, and enjoyed a splendid cold meat and cheese salad put up by Mike back in the house.
Another couple of hours work in the afternoon, with a final half hour playing trains testing the days work.
Home by six, after a thoroughly enjoyable day out.

Hwyl fawr,
Shaun.

Last Thursday two of us Chuffers had a special treat - honoury member Mike, who I've mentioned before invited us up to his holding in the hills above Llangadog. It would have been three of us, but Colin had previous commitments, so it just left Pat and myself.
This is the view that greets you when you pull up in front of Mike and Judith's house:

Anyway, we didn't go there just for the view.
Mike had mentioned when he issued the invite that he had an ulterior motive - there was work to be done!
He had acquired a second-hand 3mm layout that needed more than one person to assemble... 12 boards, each one at least three foot by two, and hadn't been put together or run for several years.
To quote Mike:

The layout was built & exhibited by Peterborough M.R.C. from some time in the late 80's & I acquired it from an advert on the 3mm web. 

 I'm told they ran 32 different trains on it with 8 coach trains & needed 5 people to run it - more than that I don't know as it was such a rush to collect it.

                   I believe the locos & coaches I bought also ran on it as they came from the late Bob Holman who was a club member.

After coffee and the obligatory cake, we went out into the garage and set to:

 Rather like putting a jigsaw together when you don't have the picture, as Mike had no instructions or plans given to him.

Some of the boards unpacked:

and finally getting assembled (for the second time - wrong way round the first attempt!):

After a couple of hours success crowned our efforts, and we had all the boards put together in the right order, and looking good!

We took a well-earned break at that stage and retired to the house for and excellent lunch, before going back and inspecting the layout in more detail. You can tell how long it had been stored by the cobwebs seen below:

We connected all the wiring up between the boards, and then had a look at the power supply - a PAT testers nightmare!

However we finally found connections for supply to the controllers, and plugged in - a Eureka moment! (or movement...) a loco actually moved on the lines, before any cleaning or other attention.

A lot more work is required, as a lot of plugs are broken, wires loose, and there is still the signalling and point operation to be sorted out - but I can foresee several trips to Llanduesant over the coming winter months!

Many thanks to Mike for letting us Chuffers share his discovery.

Colin will be green with envy...

Shaun.

Monday evening, and we can now relax after an exhausting weekend at the Login Extravaganza...
It proved very successful, for details visit Peters FB page  https://www.facebook.com/AfternoonTeaAtTheStation/  you might have to copy and paste, as I can't get the link to behave properly.
You may see some of the Chuffers photos  posted there, and vise-versa, as we share...

All the layouts ran throughout the two days, although we lost power to Cardigan late on Saturday, but repaired it before starting again on Sunday. Beautiful weather, but much too hot to be inside playing trains!
Lot of people showing interest in the layouts, particularly the actual history of the stations that we portray.
We had one fan in particular who captivated us on Saturday - he liked the layouts so much that he returned on Sunday, and was close to tears when he finally had to go. We have made him an honary member of the Cardi-Bach Society, as he is too young to join the Chuffer-Duffers.

His name is Lewis, and here he is directing Pat on the operations he wants carried out:

Colin came along on Saturday to provide relief support, and Thomas did stirling duty manning the controllers on Sunday.

Also on Sunday this interloper was spotted passing through Boncath Station:

Pulling a rake of composite coaches and a horse box in Southern Livery it turned out to be a Drummond 4F 0-6-0. How it arrived on the Cardi-Bach line remains a mystery...
Couple of other Photos of it:

(We think that Mike from Llandeusant may know something about it.)

Next layout date for us is exhibiting the 'Teifi Gorge' at the Welsh National Woolen Museum in Drefach Velindre on July 26/27 (a Thursday and Friday Carmarthen Modellers Exhibition)

Selamat tinggal,

Shaun.

Tomorrow is the big day at Login!

The Chuffers have been busy this week - Tuesday evening we had a Cardi-Bach meeting at Login, specifically to help Peter out with getting the new building ready for exhibiting the Cardi Bach layouts and memorabilia associated with the old line.

Peter, Roy and Eirwyn lined up the cabinets, screwed them together and fitted plywood tops, whilst Patrick, Thomas and myself put the layouts together and mounted them on the cabinets. This proved rather more difficult than we expected, as all the wiring had to be flush with the connecting boards, and would not be accessible once the baseboards were in place.

All came right in the end though, and the evening was deemed a success!
Thursday Emyr called round with the Kilgerran layout and the display boards together with the photo boards and signs. He and Pete put Kilgerran together and made a start with Crymmych Arms.

Today (Friday) Patrick and I got to Login at 9:30 a.m. and put the finishing touches to the layouts and checked them for operation. With very little fettling all the layouts ran successfully - Kilgerran will be static due to limited space, but we have all the lights working. Not so with Cardigan - movement, but no illumination... As cardigan is attached to Boncath, it is a major task to diagnose the problem, so we will leave it until after the weekend.

Pat setting up Cardigan

Boncath and Crymmych arms









Friday lunchtime, and this was the state of play. Later today or tomorrow morning pictures will be put into the frames, and Roy Harverson's collection of Cardi-Bach stock will go on the side tables.
In the foreground are boxes of railway related books that will be on sale.

On the modelling front, this week I managed to build a couple of static displays showing two more of the stations on the Cardi Bach. Glogue:

And Llanfyrnach (minus the crossing gate):

Both to scale, 2mm to the foot (roughly N gauge)
These are really just three dimensional mock-ups to show people what the stations were like, and to accompany the photographs.

All hands to the pumps tomorrow, kick-off at eleven a.m.

Hope to see you there,
Shaun.

As the Login Annual Open day draws ever closer, the ChufferDuffers have put modelling on the back burner and concentrated on the coming weekend, though we did have a convivial meeting at Charles' on Tuesday evening, where we dined 'alfresco' on an excellent Italian style terrine made for us by Louise. The usual liquid refreshment was imbibed, including an excellent red that Charles had discovered in Aldi. (They have now sold their stock. I got the last bottle today)

Anyhow, thats by-the-by. On with the blog:

We are transferring all the Cardi-Bach layouts from their temporary quarters in the back of my garage to a new home in the new Cardi-Bach building - it has yet to be christened with a proper name - to just call it 'Petes new shed' doesn't do it justice at all!
Emyr and I loaded his van last week with 'Cardigan', 'Boncath', and 'Crymmych' and took them over to Login.

They are yet to be joined by 'Kilgerran' and 'Login' and also need to be unpacked and tested for running.
No doubt they will also require quite a bit of titivating as they have been stored for over a year, and probably have become home to quite a collection of spiders.

Anyhow, that shouldn't take too long once we can find a free day when us Duffers can get over there.






The building has now acquired a very posh entrance platform, with stairs and the now almost obligatory ramp, a necessity in this case, as the doors are a good foot above the ground level.
 These are the steps and platform, complete with a flower bed and shrub-tub.
To the left can be seen the original station platform edging.

Next picture is of the disabled ramp - no, correction, the ramp for disabled...

Inside there is a screen available for showing films and slides from the C-B collection - here the screen is kindly being shown to Emyr by Pete's wife Dawn.

At the other end, the entrance end, Peter has built a reception desk, which conveniently has a fridge built underneath to provide storage for soft drinks, etc (etc being beer and lager. shhh...)

Finally in readiness for the weekend the marquee was erected yesterday - Pete had most of the framework assembled when I got to Login yesterday, and we had it all done by two o'clock, with assistance from Sue Allen, and C-B member Mike Edwards who turned up out of the blue to lend a hand.

Couple of pictures of the marquee to finish this weeks post.

 

Next blog post will be after the Login Show.

Tara,
Shaun.