Good evening everyone - welcome to the latest ChufferDuffer blog. It has been quite a while since the last one, but with nothing much to report I didn't want to bore you all. Probably do that anyway...

Castle in the last post was Manorbier - dead easy, wasn't it.

Harder one for this post. I can't claim the photograph as my own, not like the others, as this was taken quite a while ago. We are staying in Pembrokeshire - but only just.

Built sometime around the 16th century, it was a fortified residence more than a military installation.

Full marks if you identify it.

Cardi-Bach Society news - we may well resume meetings sometime next month, although we will have to observe Covid restrictions, and comply with 'Track and Trace'. All the same, it will be good to get back to some sort of normality.

On to Chuffer stuff!

At Chessboard House Pat has dug out Maes Y Gof from where it was squirreled away under the O gauge layout, and has been busy tidying it up in readiness for the Bala Exhibition in September. Over three months away, but time seems to be passing quite quickly in these strange times.

Here is the layout all spruced up:

A couple of things to highlight - the refreshment wagon is presently parked in the siding waiting for the evening train to arrive with hungry punters:

Whilst one station employee took a rather drastic way to cool off from the unseasonable heat of last week:

Also going to the Bala Expo will be Pats N gauge American West themed layout. I managed to grab a very quick video of it - excuse the flickering, I think there was feed back from  fluorescent lights.

 

 

 

 

Leaving Cilgerran and travelling 10 or 12 miles down the Taf valley we get to Login, and a chance to see the progress that Station Master Pete has made with his 4mm model of the Lynton and Barnstaple narrow guage railway.

Since our last visit, Lynton station has started to take shape, together with the coal yard that lay at the end of the station complex.

Overall views show the extent of the layout, starting from the right hand side with Woody Bay:

Going past the farm yard, which was featured in a previous blog:

And around the back of the layout, now with the smithy, a roadside pub and a couple of cottages.

Here we can see the cottages in greater detail, still to be finished. Most of the basic landscape has been contoured, and trees and walling gradually appearing. The most tedious task will be applying acres of static grass!

Yet to be painted are station boards that were painstakingly produced for Peter by Daniel, Pat's son. 

Other additions include a vegetable plot in the farm garden, yet to be fenced off from the various livestock that are around the farm:

 

I'll finish this particular post with a video of the first successful running of a train from Lynton all the way around to Woody Bay. 

Hope you enjoyed this post - next week it's a Chuffer meeting here in Pentrecagal. 'Till then,

Cheerio,

Shaun.