Good evening, and once again welcome to the Chuffers blog.
10th of May and we are still in a lock-down situation. Bearable I suppose for those of us fortunate to live where we do, but I hate to think what it must be like living in an apartment, or stuck in one of those high-rise tower blocks...
Look on the bright side - we are allowed out twice a day from Monday...   I can't speak!

But this blog is about happier things than pandemics, so lets crack on with 'Chuffing' activities-

Getting the Teifi Gorge extension out of the way first - not a lot to show you. I've been busy experimenting with the river, and general scenics, but nothing that is worthy of photographing. What has happened is that the four points, or turnout have arrived:

These, horror of horrors, we had to buy - something we hate doing, as precious pennies are better going towards French Red Laughing Water... however, Colin shared the cost with me, and Pat donated the remainder of the track.
All we have to do is get together and fix it down! - easier said than done in these troubled times.

I met Pat and Mary today (at a suitable distance) to collect a file of photographs showing Pats latest achievements. We met halfway between Llechryd and Cilgerran, along the banks of the Teifi :

Which was nice.


You may recall that Pat has built a model of a railcar - in 00 gauge, a gauge that so far we have not embraced. Not to be thwarted, Pat promptly built a small 00 layout!
It is almost what is recognized as a 'shunting puzzle' by model railway affectionados.


Incomplete at the moment, but fully functional:

And to prove its functional, here is the railbus on a quick (very quick) jaunt along the rails:

Here in Llechryd I was playing about with the new layout, and was a tad enthusiastic operating a point. We use a method called 'wire in a tube' - plastic tubing is buried in the board, and a thin piece of wire passes through, and pulls or pushes the point mechanism. I pulled too hard, and the wire came out. and you can't put it back. end of W-I-T operation...

Ferreting about in the back of the 'come in useful one day' drawer, I found an electric solenoid point.
With the help of Alf, the mobile rail-mounted crane, this was installed on a spare patch of ground:

The local builder was then tasked with the job of putting up a suitable shed to disguise the point. Just a shell at the moment, requiring a bit more titivation.

Among the pictures on the memory stick that Patrick passed on to me today was this one of Colin, Mike, and myself, taken at our first showing of the Teifi Gorge layout at the National Woolen Mill in Drefach Felindre back in I think, 2015

Staying with the Teifi Gorge layout, I'll finish this blog with a video of a goods train leaving the yard at Cilgerran, going down to the dock-side at St Dogmaels, and ending with a shot of the Canol Lan.

Cherrio,
Shaun.