Well Bois... must be three weeks since the last Chuffers update. We had an excellent Cardi-Bach meeting on the eighth of February, when as I mentioned in the last post, two of the Chuffers were going to  entertain us.

Pat gave an excellent illustrated presentation on the history of Cilgerran Station, and Colin brought along his ever increasing collection of scratch-built fairground attractions, including a couple of models of traction engines used by the operators of the rides. Together with archive movie footage and photographs it made for a well appreciated evening all round.

Our next Cardi-Bach meeting will be on Tuesday March the eighth, again at 7:30 in the Bont public house in Llanglydwen. Everyone welcome - you don't have to be a member.

 

On to the Chufferduffers. We met last week here at Pentrecagal - literal translation is village of sheep-shit. (actually cagals are the straggly bits of dung-matted wool hanging from the sheep...)

My only contribution to the evening was to dish up Coq au vin:

 

 

  

Colin brought along his latest 009 locomotive to show us, as he had just received name plates and makers plates to grace the side of the engine.

As usual his work is of an exemplary standard. Herewith a few pictures of Sarah - I forgot to include something to show the scale, but by now you will know it's small 

You will have the opportunity to see Sarah running on the Teifi Gorge Layout, as we will be exhibiting at the Pembrokeshire Modellers Expo on the 23rd of April, at the Heritage Museum in Pembroke Dock.

Also if you have a weekend away planned, you could make your way up to Burton-on-Trent, for Saturday the 11th of June, when Pat and Mary will be showing 'Maes Y Gof', Pats 7mm narrow gauge layout - where you can see amongst other engines, No 11 :

Also a new edition to the fleet, yet to be named:

Engine driver and station staff are in the process of being fettled and painted.

These photos were taken at our latest Chufferduffers meeting, last night at Patrick's, where I think we had the hottest meal yet (Pat strives to test us!) a homemade pizza with a lot of chillis, garlic, anchovies and added Tabasco. Clean plates all round, but we had a job to wake Colin up at the end of the evening!

Over in the Taf valley at Login, Chuffer Pete has embarked on a 009 layout - mainly because it was too cold to progress his L & B layout, which was out in the unheated railway wagon. Domestic authorities kindly suggested that he used their sitting room.

I called over to Pete and Dawn last week (thanks for the eggs) and took a couple of pictures of the progress that Pete has made:

 

 

 

Further updates on this in a couple of weeks, when knowing Pete, much progress will have been made!

Plans are afoot to bring our 7mm narrow gauge 'unnamed' out of storage - last seen in the conservatory at Llechryd - and set it up here in the garage at Pentrecagal for us to work on. Plus it will give me an opportunity to contribute something worthwhile to the blog!

To finish off - more scenes from the far-flung places that the oil industry took me to.

A couple of posts back I put up a couple of photos of the Christmas Menu we had in Santan, which is on the East coast of Kalimantan, in Borneo.

This picture was taken approaching the installation, the only way in was by air...

Flying over the installation to the airstrip in the background, with a native village, and then the tropical forest. Our accommodation was the group of bungalows more or less in the center of the picture.

Not all that grim, as we did have a swimming pool!

There you have it - another fun filled action packed month in the lives of the Chufferduffers!

Nos da,

Shaun.

 Hello everyone - I don't know how many of you are following the Chuffers - but welcome to our little blog.

Winter doldrums have set in, but we are soldiering along, and the weather isn't too bad, plus Covid seems to have settled down to just an attack of 'flu, so perhaps we may see exhibitions starting up again - our layouts really need an airing!

The Cardi-Bach Society is up and running, our February meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, with Pat giving a presentation on Kilgerran station, and Colin taking along his fairground attractions. Which segues nicely into our first set of pictures - updates to one of Colins rides - the Steam Yachts.

 

He has added the decorative board along the top...

And here is a preview of the collection, in case you are unable to get along to Y Bont next Tuesday!

 

They were taken two weeks ago when we met at Colins for the weekly Chufferduffers  - the usual indulgence of crisps, olives, wine, pate with salad, and soup and garlic bread. Plus of course a glass or two of Rioja for those who weren't driving... (!)

Last night I collected Colin and we went along to Chessboard House where Pat was hosting.

He is still active in 3mm mode, and the possibility of a 3mm layout is looming larger, which should raise a cheer up in the Carmarthenshire hills (you know who you are...)

 

First a picture of the completed Ford:

and then the post office van:

and finally the post office van, a fire engine, and in the background a Scammel articulated yard truck. We are a little concerned about the apparent scale between the vehicles - at 3mm to the foot, the PO van door would seem to be 14mm, the fire engine 13mm, and the Scammel 15. With the average person being 5' 8", that would be 17mm... 

Pat did us proud by producing a full meal of liver and bacon in an onion gravy with mashed potatoes, green beans and garden peas! (plus of course... )

 

Unfortunately I have nothing in the modelling department to offer, so a couple of more pictures from my work abroad.

In 1985 I worked off-shore of Columbia, in the Gulf of Panama, on a 350,000 ton tanker converted into a storage and transshipping vessel. Oil from the Columbian jungle came through a pipeline, and we transferred it to smaller tankers alongside.

This was the tanker (FSU Covenas)

A view from the control room, built ontop of the wheelhouse:

As well as the off-loading arms each side, we also pumped oil through a floating hose to tankers moored to a remote buoy. This needed checking once a week, which we did using a RIB.

Happy days!!

 

 

 

 

 

Thats about it for this post.

Take care,

Shaun.