16mmngm – Moel Rhos

New Arrival (2): Coal Fired DJB Ragleth

While live steam is already wonderful, and has its own challenges and rewards, making the steam with coal (rather than gas, as on my other locos) has always been another ambition. So when I spotted a dealer offering this second hand Accucraft Ragleth, converted by the renowned DJB Engineering, I decided I couldn’t let it pass.

New Arrival (1): Roundhouse Katie

Not just one new steamer has arrived on the Moel Rhos this year, but two, the first of which is this Roundhouse Katie. I’ve wanted a Katie for the Moel Rhos for 10 years, when I was inspired by the loco Chris Bird fitted with a slomo, as I wrote back then. I wrote back then “It’s not a contender because (with R/C and slomo) it is more than 3 time my budget”. But earlier this year, spotting one (without slomo) at an attractive price on a popular auction site, I took a punt, and it joins the fleet as No 11.

Renewing the Trackbed

I mentioned recently much of the line had been lifted for new trackbed, and I’ve now finished and relaid. The original trackbed design was motivated by the ‘overgrown’ aesthetic and in particular wanting moss to grow.

Easter on the Moel Rhos

The Easter Eggspress was in service today, despite significant engineering works (much of the line is lifted for new trackbed, and some of it is underneath a pile of timber…)

Merry Christmas from the Moel Rhos

Merry Christmas everyone – and here’s to a trainful happy new year in 2025!

Train shelves

In the summer of 2020 I knocked a hole for the railway to enter the shed to provide storage for keeping trains coupled up and on the rails to get things going more quickly when I wanted to run something. My intention was to create a ‘fiddle yard’ based on the ‘cassette’ system often used in smaller scales, but owing to space 16mm scale takes (and the fact my converted pig sty is not a big shed!) I decided to have the cassettes stored vertically, effectively as a set of shelves.

Making holes…

Back in May and June 2020, lockdown restrictions gave me time to work on the extension, which at that point had only reached as far as the second bridge. The next step (for both phases 2 and 3) of the extension involved making holes including one for gaining access to the shed for stock storage.

Building Bridges (2)

The most delayed post on this blog (so far) I meant to write this 8 years ago, it was a planned 2-parter with Building Bridges (1) describing two alternate styles of removable bridge. The second bridge itself was complete before I’d written up the first!

Easter Bunny

A couple of Easters back I realised the line had no Easter Bunny (not counting the scale 4 meter high monsters who visit occasionally) so I downloaded a rabbit from Thingiverse and printed him. Here he is riding in luxury on a Binnie flat wagon…

Sir John Hurt

“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.”
– The Day of the Doctor

One of the first things I did when I got my printer, back at the end of 2020, was of course to download Sir John Hurt and print him at 1:19 scale.