“By March 2020, it had become apparent that the little loved and much neglected Rhach & Rhwyn Railway was once more almost moribund. The track was mostly overgrown and still showing the effects of leaf fall from the previous autumn, with several breaks in the rail and indeed the total absence of a running line for one short stretch. In the works mouldered the half-assembled bodywork of the line’s sole premier standard carriage, along with the chassis only for a small diesel Simplex engine, both untouched since the revival almost three years previously. This had taken place when it became apparent that the original Company management was a useless, lazy incompetent. Unfortunately, it turned out that the new management was very much of the same stock. With a(nother) new management team in place, could the line strike it third time lucky and reverse its terminal decline?”
- J. O. K. Boyd, Least Interesting Narrow Gauge Railways Of Obscure Wales, Vol. 9

Oof, I suppose at least the gaps between R&R revivals are growing shorter. While the aforementioned tree incident last October thankfully left the line untouched, along with almost everything else we cared about in the garden bar the fence, the booted, visored men that followed in its wake were sadly not quite so dainty, although for understandable reasons when swinging a chainsaw about. Sawdust covered so much of the top end of the line that I would have been better switching to modelling a timber line rather than a slate quarry. One piece of track had been ripped out entirely, and there were numerous small breaks where fragile Peco track joiners had given up the ghost under either duress or corrosion. In a couple of places, sleepers were missing entirely and the webbing had come away from the rails. Oddly, several small gaps of up to 5mm had opened up at various joints as well, despite the fact that there was no loose play in which to push the track back together.

Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing that a day’s work on hands and knees couldn’t put right, or at least bodge sufficiently to make it runnable. Suddenly having new longeurs of free time available thanks to the Covid-19 lockdown (although never as much as it seemed there ought to be), I alighted on the railway as my new project and got to work. In the sudden retail shortage of Peco SL-810 fishplates, I took the opportunity to test out Cliff Barker’s plastic rail joiners, which look much more prototypical and are reasonably easy to fit providing you don’t force them open too far, and underpin the excavated parts of the trackbed with some of the spare paving bricks I still had, in the hope of supporting it better against future size elevens.

And then, inspired, somehow I also managed to not only construct two Binnie wagons still in their bags but also finish off the IP Engineering 2nd class/guards coach kit that had lain around painted but incomplete ever since I concluded that the wheels had been fitted much too far apart for the radius of the curves on my line. With some effort and fair amount of acetone nail varnish remover, I was able to prise off the axle boxes (and, indeed, the sole bars - whoops) and move them further in. I’d thought 150mm apart would be adequate but testing showed that it would need to be a centimetre less to achieve acceptable running. Even then, you can still feel the flanges tighten as it goes round the corners. As a final flourish, before interminably gluing the roof down with endless superglue, I installed the two passenger figures I acquired five years ago. (They’re extremely well detailed and characterful painted individuals from the late, lamented Back2Bay6, and I really wish I’d bought many more at the time, particularly at such a laughably modest price. None of the figures I’ve seen since come close in execution.)

This whole kit has been, frankly, a ridiculous and long-winded farrago on my part. Granted it looks very smart in crimson and white but it’s right at the limit of coach length for my line - I even had to shave off the edge of one of our bedding sleepers at one point so that the roof could clear a corner. Oh well, I don’t expect I’ll ever build another one like this…

Aw, nuts.

“Flushed with success, the newly reconstituted R&R board was finally able to reach a decision on a matter it had been wrestling with for far too long. An order was placed…”
- J. O. K. Boyd, ibid