In praise of Airfix

I love the Airfix railway series of kits; there's something elementally right about them that lends realism far beyond their face value. Perhaps it's because they subliminally transport one back to the days of Ladybird books (Tootles the Taxi anyone?), scabby knees and the Corona pop lorry. In the sixties they were as clichéd as a Superquick goods shed, today I reckon they are undervalued gems. At the recent Corris show I got hold of four quids worth of Dapol retro loveliness in the shape of the bungalow kit. it's place on Morfa will be as the toll cottage at the Barmouth end of the bridge. Here's where I've got up to with it.

 

 

 

Lots of nothing

I've been fiddling with the video function of my camera recently. The results haven't been very good but they do show better than stills what Morfa is about, and that's space. Most layouts that we see make busy places, where there's much railway interest, their focus. Morfa is really about the landscape and a single line winding through it.

The bodge is dead, long live the bodge

In the previous entry I mentioned the supposedly temporary bridge; well it lasted for five months or so. It was three carefully matched piles of magazines that the flexitrack sat on top of. Though a joyously quick fix that allowed trains to whiz round, it really looked a mess and so with an hour to spare, a big cardboard box and a glue gun I knocked up a better temporary structure one evening last week. Here it is.