Wrack and Ruin

Rust never sleeps

Here's a tip: test your track by running a train both ways round it, with the engine facing in either direction. My circuit is pretty reliable if run clockwise with the engine facing backwards. If it hadn't been for my junior navvie and her preference for forward facing in the other direction, I wouldn't have discovered two bad rail joints. Which led to the first serious bout of track maintenance.

If run any other way than clockwise and backwards, the results are ... well, let's say "undefined", but typically involve derailments or wheel slip. The latter seems to be caused by the trailing wagons pulling the loco back slightly and causing the front end to rise, which then fails to grip on some of the gradients. I tried gluing a short length of steel bar under the front axle for added adhesion, but it has only been a partial success. In retrospect, I wish I'd built the chassis and underframe first, allowing me to align the motor better and insert some extra weight under the bonnet.

The derailments were due to a misaligned rail joint, causing the wheel to knock, and another joint where the rail had slipped out of the joiner, creating a sudden wheel drop that generally caught my lightest plastic wagon. I underdid the adjacent plate and replaced the joiner. I also gave the misaligned joint a twist with the pliers to ease the disconnect. Should have used more bricks on the curves. One at each end and one in the middle aren't enough to keep the track solidly in place; I'd have been better advised to place a paver under each joint midway.

While I had the tools out, I also replaced some of the mending plates that had rusted badly over winter. They're zinc-plated, but in the worst throes of a Welsh winter, zinc apparently means zip. Worse, the screws had corroded too, in some cases so badly that it was tricky to undo them. I thought they were brass screws, but on reading the packet, it turns out that "brass" also means "zinc-plated" in this context. Being unable to extract the screws would have been quite bad, and the only solutions would have been to either cut the sleepers or wait further until the mending plate disintegrated altogether. However, greater love hath no man than that for his favourite tool (ahem), and I am currently betrothed to my Kamasa ratchet screwdriver, which thankfully did the job. A tip for removing chewed-up crosshead screws: use a slot screw bit of the closest size for extra grip. On removing the screw, the very worst thing that can happen at this point is for a small piece of ballast to drop into the hole - necessitating a frantic minute of poking around with a needle to clear the obstruction.

The mending plates have fared variably with no obvious pattern to the rusting. I used both yellow and silver zinc plates, but I'm fairly sure both types have corroded in places and survived in others. Some plates that were fitted first have lasted, while others that were used later have failed - and vice-versa. I suspect several inches of snow and wet leaves may have accelerated the process on the curves. Now I need to revisit B amp; Q to find something more durable. I've seen some heavy duty plastic-coated ones, which may be worth a try. Although in my experience, once the water finds a gap in the plastic then the plate starts rusting on the inside until the coating bulges and splits, and the resulting appearance is twice as ugly. Perhaps a coat of Hammerite would be better.

Bridge

I'm weak. I couldn't resist. I had to have one. Coming on top of a new garden bench, and ahead of the imminent delivery of a tree seat and a playhouse, meaning that the garden will soon resemble a crowded woodyard, this small ornamental bridge is a little extravagant - another good month for my flexible fiend.

On the other hand, certain small people much prefer trip-trapping over the bridge to stamp-stomping over the track in their size sixes (you'd be amazed how much pull the average welly tread can exert). And even if it's massively overscale, it looks lovely - this is supposed to be a garden as well as a railway.

I had a minor worry about the clearance underneath, but a quick Google shows that Accucraft's Edrig loco is six inches high and the tape measure says we've got seven under here, so we should be golden. (Of course, for the price of the bench and bridge, I could have had Edrig but still, another day...)

Overgrown

As you can see, the vegetation is crowding in on the loading gauge, entropy has taken hold and soon nature will reclaim the trackbed, leaving only a melancholy set of rusting rails somewhere amidst the foliage.

...Excellent!

Obviously, I've pulled up the worst weeds - the larger ones growing between the sleepers that were going to cause derailments. The lawn edge also needs strimming to prevent the grass fouling the line. But generally, I'm trying to check my urge to clean and tidy too much, and hope the plant life takes over.

My little crop of "Mind your own business" is flourishing, although it still has a way to go before spilling over on to the trackbed. I'm keeping the ground clear around it so it has room to take over. The second pot isn't doing so well, probably because it was left on the kitchen sill for too long and the sun nearly killed it off. But fair credit, it has started to revive since planting and should recover. I've also planted some sedums and a bit of thyme; they'll need about a year to get established.

Now paint your model

...My least favourite phrase in any list of kit-building instructions. At six hours per coat, with two or three top coats, this stage isn't going to be over by teatime. I feel a pang of regret every time I walk past this unfinished guards van, because it's a lovely model with some nice markings and I just want to see it running.

The proper way to paint a model requires two coats of Halfords grey primer, followed by approximately a hundred coats of the final colour, rubbing down after each coat with progressively finer grades of Wet & Dry and ending with a gentle caress from a pair of silk cami knickers belonging to an expensive French whore, also wet and dry (that "bang" you just heard was Google switching on an extra data centre to cope with my increased hits).

My way involves a quick squirt of primer and then as many top coats as I can be bothered to do (so that's about two then), slapped on any old way while watching TV. Needless to say, the results aren't as exquisite, but you get a train running some time before Christmas even if it looks like it was finished by that dodgy decorator bloke who only gives a mobile number and expects cash. What I should be doing between coats is starting another kit, but I've only just cottoned on to this obvious time economy.

Speaking of which, the kits I received really were the gift that keeps on giving. Six months on, I've still only finished one of them, with another three in a partial state - and the last only begun this weekend. Don't turn up at Rhach station, because it still doesn't exist yet.

Slate fences

Some lovely detail on Cwmcoediog, seen here in atmospheric monochrome, including that great slate fencing. I really, really like slate pillar fencing. Not sure I'd have the patience to make such a fence myself, although if it could be as simple as sticking a few shards of slate in the soil then possibly...

There are probably few better ways to shout "Welsh NG". There are plenty of these old fences surrounding the old mountain quarry areas, but they are also often seen in pictures lining railway tracks (e.g. on the Padarn and Corris railways). The only elements involved appear to be long slabs of slate and (optionally?) a length of wire to join them (details). Maybe I could get hold of some old slates via Freecycle...? Something to ponder. (I did buy some new slates from Travis Perkins, but they turned out to be nasty artificial roofing slates that don't look half as convincing.)

(With thanks to Richard for the pointer to the vid - seen via my GRA's Facebook.)