Hello everybody - welcome to the first post in April - three months of the year gone already, and very little to show for it in the Chuffering department, apart from Pete down in Login, where we will come to shortly.

First the castle slot.

Did anyone get the castle in the the last blog? (apart from Emyr and Pat, whom I told)

It was Narberth, believe it or not. Not too many people know there is a castle there - they keep very quiet about it. Not a lot is known about Narberth Castle - Norman - but legend has it linked to the  Mabinogion. 

For this blog we'll stay in Pembrokeshire for an easy one:

On to the Cardi-Bach Society. Good news and bad news, I'm afraid to say. First of all, the good news is that the Cardigan layout is now safely installed in the Castle House, in the grounds of Cardigan Castle.

Patrick, Emyr and I went to the Castle during  the weekend before Easter and connected everything up, and it all ran perfectly, without even touching the rails - and this was after a move from Login to Emyr's garage, a further move inside the garage, and then a trip from Cilgerran to Cardigan, and up two flights of stairs. Connected it all up and it ran like... well obviously not clockwork - but it ran !

Here it is in its temporary home:

Overseeing the whole operation and offering sage words of advise and encouragement is the esteemed Chairman of our Society , Mr Emyr Phillips:

Since then we have successfully negotiated the back lanes of the Taf Valley and collected the Boncath layout from the Login Museum and got it safely into Emyr's van.

But now for the bad news -

The pine end of the Museum has started leaking badly during the last couple of storms - not just from the bottom, as we previously suspected, but through the timber cladding, from the top down.

The two pictures below show the seepage of water through the insulation and ply overlay and onto the wall lining itself:

The only answer is to clad the pine end with profiled aluminium paneling, to ensure that it is impervious to the prevailing weather. Hopefully the monies realised from the Cardigan and Boncath layouts will cover the cost.

Doom and gloom out of the way, while Emyr and I were at Login picking up Boncath, Peter took the opportunity of showing us the progress he has made on his Lynton and Barnstaple layout. And what progress! Fortunately I had my camera with me, so here we have proof of progress.

 

First of all a shot looking across Woody Bay Station from the Barnstaple end. Static grass and fencing is still to be applied, and in the left-hand corner will be a quite large livestock pen area, which can be seen on the plan in the next picture

I know this is upside down, but I turned it deliberately to fit in with the station view. The plan was drawn from actual RAF Ariel photographs, and Peter has used it to try to place objects as accurately as possible, including the trees.

 

 

 

The farm is taking shape, with shire horses, pigs, chickens and the farm dog all close to their respective homes. The horses complete with their appropriate harnessing have all been painstakingly painted by Pete, the originals being in white metal.

Turning around from this view of the farm we look back to Woody Bay, with the doctors Morris 8 trundling over the bridge on the way to the station to pick up his wife who has been visiting her sister down in Lynton.

Since our last visit to the layout, a suitably painted driver complete with cloth cap has appeared and moved the traction engine out of the way so that the farmer can put up proper gates to keep the sheep safely in the field. A passing resemblance to Fred Dibnah is purely accidental...

Another view of part of the farmyard, before we move around the corner to where Lynton Station is slowly taking place.

On the road to Lynton we pass a Cornish pub, yet to be named and just out of shot the smithy

 

 

 

this leads us on to Lynton Station itself. Still very much a work in progress, but going by the rest of the layout will be just as exquisite.

We will leave this blog with a video of the afternoon train from Lynton drifting through the cutting and pulling gently into Woody Bay.

Thanks for watching, cheerio,

Shaun.