The Chuffer Duffers

Good evening everyone - welcome to the Chufferduffers. We try to keep going during these remarkable times, but the 17 day lockdown here in Wales meant a three week break in our meetings.

We eventually met at Pat's, as I am still stuck in Llechryd, camping out as it were, with everything packed up just waiting for the word... waiting being the operative word. I sold/bought on the 8th of September. It now looks like things may happen in the first week of December. Christmas in Pentrecagal? Who knows.

Enough gloom! Tuesday at Patrick's, and first of all we climbed up the stairs to the railway room to see the latest 0 gauge developments.

More work had been done on the tunnel mouths and the village above:

And a tinplate water tower, complete with lighting had popped up at the end of the station:

Here is a view of the station itself. Tinplate ACE kit, which Pat had squirreled away for several years, waiting for the right opportunity for him to put it together.

Before leaving the Layout, we had a quick run around with the Duchess, and also at the same time a freight train in the opposite direction...

Into the annex then, to give Mary a bit of peace, where we had a 'show and tell' before settling down to the serious stuff. Colin produced a water tower for the new 2mm Cardigan layout that is going to be at Login:

The pound coin gives you some idea of the scale.

For his own layout he is making an engine hoist, very similar to the one that was at Aberystwyth. (I did have a picture of it from a magazine photo, but it didn't come out all that well)

Here is Colin's work in progress, with the prototype photo underneath-

For my contribution, I have been building the Cardi-Bach stations for the new layout at Login. So far we have Llanfalteg, Rhydowen, Login, Llanglydwen, Boncath and Cilgerran. Three of them were quite easy, as they are the same pattern.

Since then I finally finished Cardigan:

More about the new Cardi-Bach layout at Login Museum in a minute. Back to the Chuffer evening. After a ten minute battle with several pieces of visual entertainment equipment, lots of cables and four different remote controls, Plus the muttering of several words that I refrain from putting in this blog, we settled down for the evenings viewing.

Emyr had come across several VHS cassette videos that were railway related, and had passed them on to us - hence Patrick's tussle with the various machines, VHS not being the norm these days.

It was well worth it though. Besides some commercially produced films, there were two outstanding home recordings. One from HTV with Wynford Vaughan-Thomas taking a trip on the Bala line, and then the Welshpool NG. - circa 1987, but an excellent recording.

The second was taken from an S4C Welsh program about the recovery from South Africa of the Bayer-Garrett locomotives for the Welsh Highland Railway - this had a Welsh commentary, but that didn't distract at all from the enjoyment. It might be an idea to get them both transcribed on to DVD.

Roast chicken joints and two bottles of Portuguese red finished the evening perfectly...

Today I called over to Login to catch up with Pete and Dawn, as I hadn't seen them for three weeks. Pete had done more wood-butchering in the museum, and the Login layout is now nestling in its own display area, complete with concealed lighting at the end of the re-vamped display:

A bit more fettling is required, but you get the idea. To the left of this is the media corner:

At least 12" radius in the corner for the track to go around, suitably hidden. A shelf is planned to go at the front for the computer and monitor.

To the immediate left (where the hammer is) we think we could have Crymych. Pete came up with a cunning plan... As the Crymych layout was quite complex, and a nice model to boot, it would be a shame to destruct it. Could we not insert it into the existing boarding? Excluding the behind the scenes fiddle yard, Crymych scenics are 24". The new board width is 18"... Butchering is required!

I brought the layout home in the back of the car. This was it then: