Layouts
Bred Albin
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge 16.5mm)
Bred Albin is fictitious, and is not a particular location, but ‘somewhere in West Perthshire’. It is set sometime back in the Sixties when a number of Scottish branch lines were served by a locomotive with just a single passenger coach. This seemed an ideal basis for a small cameo layout.
The station building is based upon the former station at Killin, while the combined signal box and signalman’s cottage is reminiscent of the one which was situated at Drumvaich on the former line between Dunblane and Callander.
The layout was featured in BRM in Jan 2025.
Photos © Andy York BRM
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Bron Hebog
(Scale: OO9 4mm/ft, track gauge: 9mm)
Why call the layout Bron Hebog? We were keen to capture not only those special cameos that pepper this part of the route, but also the dramatic landscape that frames the line. Yes, we have featured Beddgelert station but we wanted to present a wider perspective and “Bron Hebog” is a name associated with the area around the second horseshoe and a small pre-railway mine alongside the railway.
Bron Hebog is about a sense of place, typified by watching a Garratt hauling up to 10 WHR coaches on the curving climb out of Beddgelert, over the massive embankments and through the deep rock cuttings.
This layout represents a unique modelling challenge. We were required to capture the many layers of narrow gauge history, back to the abortive earthworks and bridges from the initial early 1900s proposals, the subsequent structures and groundwork of the first through line, the WHR of 1922 that overlay the original formation, and finally the FR’s restoration with its inevitable modern-day features! Modelling a railway that was still to be completed set some unusual demands in itself!
Bron Hebog makes a welcome return after having won the MMRS Cup and the Visitor Shield in 2022 – the only layout ever to have won both. It was featured in Hornby Magazine in December 2022. Further details about the layout can be found at www.bronhebog.blogspot.com
Photos © Rob Waller
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College Halt
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
This layout has been built as a collaboration between the Uckfield College Railway Club and members of the adult Uckfield Model Railway Club which has had a link with Uckfield College since 2008, supplying an experienced modeller to guide the students.
In 2017 students visited the Uckfield Exhibition and were inspired by what they saw. During the following academic year, they spent their club sessions planning and building this layout, which saw its first exhibition appearance at the Uckfield show in 2018, to great acclaim.
College Halt is based on historic photographs of Whitehall Halt on the Culm Valley line, which closed in 1963, but the students decided to make it into a preserved railway and added a passing loop for operational interest, changing the name to College Halt. The track, electrics (DCC), scenery, trees, platform and exit steps were all made by students. UMRC members helped by funding and building the baseboards, as well as supplying locos and stock to supplement those owned by the students. The layout is representing the Historical Model Railway Society whose stand is next to it.
Photos © Phil Parker BRM
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Copenhagen Fields
(Scale: 2FS 2mm/ft, track gauge 9.42mm)
This well known layout has been over 40 years in the making. The ambitious project started in 1983 and was envisaged as a railway, in an ‘area of outstanding unnatural beauty’, the area to the north of Kings Cross station and the only green field is the small park on top of the curiously named Copenhagen Tunnel. The highly detailed goods yard on top of this tunnel includes the area immortalised by the 1955 Ealing comedy film, ‘The Ladykillers’. The layout has appeared in many magazines and on numerous TV programmes, including Blue Peter four times.
Construction of this swathe of London has obviously been very time consuming for the many Model Railway Club members involved, and some of the many buildings have been constructed by members in Germany, Thailand and San Francisco. The layout is set in the between-the-wars period, but trains cover the period back to the 1900’s, with most of the locomotives scratchbuilt and some of these models have covered over 100 real miles of running!
The layout appears larger than it really is because the scale reduces from1:148 to 1:250 towards the back of the model. The smaller buildings at the back give the illusion of a greater depth than is actually present.
We have now attended exhibitions with the layout for over 30 years and it has always been shown as a ‘work in progress’. One of our claims is that the model never attends two shows without something new added to it. One of the recent developments is the inclusion of a second underground station at York Road, with many internal details visible. As the project continues into its fourth decade we look forward to further developments.
Further details can be found at https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/layouts/copenhagen-fields/
Photos © Philip Sweet
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Copper Wort
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
The layout won the Railway Modeller Cup in 2022 and the MMRS Visitor Shield in 2023.
Copper Wort depicts an Edwardian Brewery and High Street in Burton on Trent. The early 1900’s represents the high point of the brewing industry in Burton on Trent. It was an extremely busy town with the bigger breweries establishing their potential with the Midland Railway network, and the smaller breweries muscling in between them.
The layout includes a track plan based on the much larger Worthington’s arrangement to accommodate the numerous Midland Railway and Great Northern open wagons and outside framed MR vans. The buildings are based on the breweries of Bass, Ind Coope, Trumans and others, all based in and around Burton on Trent.
More information about it can be found at petegossrailwaymodelling.bigcartel.com/current-layouts
Photos © Peter Goss
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Culthwaite
(Scale: N, 2mm/ft, track gauge: 9mm)
Culthwaite – the name is an amalgam of Culgaith and Armathwaite on the less frequently modelled section of the Settle-Carlisle line north of Appleby – is set around ten years ago, before the demise of coal traffic. The layout sees a variety of freight trains from all the major operators, passenger trains from Northern and the occasional Network Rail test train. An attempt has been made to model actual trains seen on the line at that time, notably the Mossend-Clitheroe empty cement, the Carlisle-Chirk logs and the 6K05 engineer’s train in a southerly direction. The down line sees the Wembley to Irvine china clay, the Mountsorrel-Carlisle ballast and the long running Milford Jn to Ayr empty HTAs.
Culthwaite features working signals reflecting the real location at Culgaith, with semaphores on the ‘down’ and colour lights on the ‘up’. The length of the layout has been kept short to allow a more frequent timetable from the 8-road fiddle yard. You don’t have to wait long to see a train on this layout!
To learn more about the layout, visit https://www.macclesfieldmrg.org.uk/members-layouts/culthwaite/
Photos © Chris Nevard / Model Rail
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Dewsbury Midland
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Dewsbury Midland won the Railway Modeller Cup in 2000 and remains the MMRS’s flagship layout. It features accurate scratch built models of many buildings from the West Riding of Yorkshire near to Dewsbury, and is a fine example of a landscape with a railway in it.
In the MMRS clubroom all sorts of rolling stock can be seen on it, but at exhibitions, it normally runs with stock appropriate to the line. For this show, it will use 1950/60s BR steam. It also features moving road traffic at one end.
Photos © MMRS, Derek Shore / Railway Modeller, Chris Nevard / Model Rail
Dundreich
(Scale: OO9 4mm/ft, track gauge: 9mm)
This is a significant layout in the development of railway modelling and forms part of our “Timeline” display. It is the last surviving remnant of P D Hancock’s ground breaking Craig & Mertonford Light Railway, possibly the very first narrow gauge model railway ever built. The layout was built in the bedroom of the owner’s flat in Edinburgh from 1949 onwards and appeared regularly in Railway Modeller between October 1950 and February 1993. The Craig & Mertonford Light Railway won the Railway Modeller Cup three times, in 1954, 1955 and 1960.
It was rebuilt twice (when the bedroom it was in was redecorated) and was finally dismantled when its owner moved house in 1987. Dundreich is part of the third version, built from 1975 onwards. Because of the layout’s age and fragility, it is very rarely exhibited in public – the last time was in 2013, so this is a very rare chance to see the forerunner and inspiration of all the OO9 layouts which followed.
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Ericdale
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Ericdale is a fictional branch line terminus with storage sidings which serves a village in north-west England near the Lake District. The line used to lead to a military base during WW2 but this connection closed when the base closed. It is set during the early TOPS years of the 1970’s with the sidings connecting to holding depots for freight wagons which are stored for another loco to collect. The layout is named in tribute to late MMRS member, and my grandfather, Eric Willshire.
The layout was a runner-up in the Society’s Centenary Micro-layout challenge and is making its first public appearance.
Photos © Greg Mape
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The Ffarquhar Branch
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
No exhibition is complete without a Thomas the Tank Engine layout, and this year we have the ORIGINAL Thomas layout, built by the Rev Wilbert Awdry, the author of the Thomas books, for his son, Christopher.
The Ffarquahr Branch is an historically important layout and forms part of our “Timeline” display.
The layout is almost 80 years old and is normally housed in the museum at the Talyllyn Railway, where the Rev Awdry worked as a volunteer, and only makes rare exhibition appearances away from its base.
The operators of The Ffarquahr Branch use a timetable devised by the Rev Awdry, and also the commentary that he himself wrote to accompany the moves of the naughty blue tank engine and his friends.
Unfortunately, the layout, and Thomas, are too old and fragile for visitors to operate themselves, but they can still enjoy the antics of the REAL Thomas who is as naughty aged 80 as he was when he appeared in his first book back in 1945!
Photos © Talyllyn Railway
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Grantham – The Streamliner Years
(Scale: OO 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Grantham – the Streamliner Years depicts this well-known location on the East Coast mainline in the period 1935-1939, allowing the iconic streamliner trains to be run. During this period, Grantham shed still retained its operational turntable and had an allocation of the original Gresley A1 Pacifics, as well as numerous Ivatt Atlantics, 4-4-0s and 0-6-0s.
The layout is operated to a schedule based on the summer 1938 timetable, showing a representative selection of trains and features loco changes, arriving/departing passenger trains (from Derby/Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln and Boston) and goods traffic. As well as the streamliner trains themselves (Coronation, Silver Jubilee and West Riding) look out for the 1938 Flying Scotsman set and the unique Quintuple Dining Car set used on the Leeds service. The pre-war iron ore wagons, used for the workings from the quarries in the High Dyke area, are also featured.
The layout was started in 2006 and took 16 years to complete. Standard Peco streamline products have been adapted to recreate the prototypical trackwork formations. Working signals (constructed from MSE parts) are a feature, interlocked with the layout’s DC control system and Kadee couplers are used to aid shunting operations. Scenery work has been undertaken to complement the operational railway. The well-known Lee & Grinling Maltsters building has been re-created as the backdrop to the Up Goods Yard. A vignette of Grantham’s former cattle market has also been included. A working roadway system runs from the town centre to the south end of the layout.
Grantham won the Railway Modeller Cup in 2024, but this is scheduled to be its final public appearance.
Photos © Tony Wright
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Grimesthorpe (for Attercliffe)
(Scale: Manchester EM, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 18mm)
This layout will be making its public debut in its finished form at our exhibition, yet it is part of our “Timeline” display and is a layout of historical significance. How can this be?
It is being built by a very experienced modeller in EM scale, and was shown as a “work in progress” at ExpoEM earlier this year. It is constructed to the original “Manchester Eighteen Millimetre” standards developed by MMRS members Sid Stubbs, Norman Whitnall and John Langan in the 1960s, which is slightly narrower than what is now termed EM gauge.
Much of the locos and rolling stock running on Grimesthorpe (for Attercliffe) were built by Sid Stubbs. These 50+ year old model locomotives were built at a time when everything, including the wheels, electric motors and gearboxes, had to be hand made.
Photos © Karl Crowther
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Higginson & Burrell Aggregates
(Scale: G, 13.5mm/ft, track gauge: 45mm)
My “G” gauge garden layout was languishing under the previous year’s weeds and overgrowth when the MMRS announced its competition to build a 2m x 0 .45m micro-layout for our Centenary. With the stock on hand, I came up with a quarry shunting puzzle.
There are 8 tipper trucks and 2 locos. The puzzle is to move two of the empty trucks to the loading point, fill them, and then move them to the discharge point where they can be emptied. It’s harder than you think because there always seems to be a spare truck in the way, but any exhibition visitor is welcome to have a go!
We had to make a scratch built conveyor belt and emptying mechanism. The scenery is made from excess garden railway bits and pieces suitably placed to form the working quarry scene, which might be found anywhere in the country.
The layout was a runner-up in the Society’s Centenary Micro-layout challenge and is making its first public appearance.
Photos © Frank Burrell
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Laramie Terminal
(Scale: O, 7mm/ft, track gauge: 32mm)
Laramie Engine Terminal is an O-scale model railway layout depicting a part of the Union Pacific Engine Terminal at Laramie, Wyoming, as it was in the late 1950s.
In the hot summers of 1957 & 58, the Union Pacific’s 4-8-8-4 “Big Boys” (amongst the largest steam locomotives ever built) were brought out of store for their final moment of glory, pulling massive trains from the Californian fruit harvest east over Sherman Hill between Laramie and Cheyenne in Wyoming. This layout aims to capture what it was like fuelling, watering and turning these monster beasts for this 50 mile each way shuttle.
Laramie Engine Terminal’s owner has also built YORK, a 2mmFS layout which won the Railway Modeller Cup in 2023, and appeared at the MMRS exhibition the same year. For more details about the layout and how it was constructed, visit www.laramieengineterminal.com
Photos © Peter Kirmond
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Leighmoor Bois
(Scale: OO, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm (Hornby 3 rail)
The traditional Hornby-Dublo train set is a bright green baseboard carrying as much track as possible, with some buildings put down wherever they will fit. This is an attempt at the layout I wanted back in the day!
By modern standards the Hornby-Dublo range was small. You can’t model a location; you can’t even model a region, but I wanted a better name than “Anytown”. “Leigh” is found in place names all over England; “Moor” is Northern and Western; “Bois” is Southern and Eastern, so Leighmoor Bois.
Station buildings and platforms, footbridge and signal boxes are all Dublo, as are most of the signals. The backscene is Peco, the buildings are mostly Metcalfe. The shops have “interesting” names: my favourite is the Travel Agent. Figures include Holmes and Watson, IKB, Sir Topham Hat and so on. Illuminated features include buffer stops, street lamps and Belisha Beacons.
Leighmoor Bois is an unashamed tail-chasing crowd-pleaser, with a variety of trains and a Big Red Button which operates the Travelling Post Office – always popular with the younger visitors! For Dublo enthusiasts there are some rarities and Neverwazzas.
In 2022 a flat-screen display was added, offering more information than you want to know on what was, at one time, the UK’s leading model railway system.
Photos © Philip Delnon
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Littledene
(Scale: OO, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Littledene will be making its public debut at our Centenary Exhibition. One of the owner’s earlier layouts, Herstmonceux, won the MMRS Challenge Cup in 2015.
Littledene is a station on the Ouse Valley Light Railway (OVLR). The hamlet of Littledene is roughly 3 miles southeast of Lewes in East Sussex and sits below the Downs, between the villages of Glynde, Firle and Beddingham.
The OVLR was formed through a desire to join estates and their industries which also helped them show off their stature in the area. The OVLR ran from Thunders Hill to Littledene, later extended to the terminus at Tarring Neville. Traffic on the line consisted of both passenger and goods. This included livestock, farm produce & equipment, lime, chalk, wood and coal.
Financial and operational difficulties after WW1 allowed Col Stephens to step in and offer to run the OVLR. This gave him the opportunity to extend the Rother Valley Railway/Kent & East Sussex Railway to meet the OVLR.
The layout is set during the early 30’s. More information and pictures at http://www.ousevalleymodeller.wordpress.com
Photos © Andy Jones
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Manchester “Big Trams”
(Scale: Unique 5/8”/ft, track gauge: 2 7/16”)
From 1951 (when we believe the photo below was taken) until the Millenium the Manchester “Big Trams” appeared regularly at our exhibitions, and have also appeared at the NEC, Crich Tramway Museum, MOSI and the National Rail Museum in York. At every venue at which the trams appear, the pieces of track are arranged in a different pattern – never the same thing twice!
The Manchester Model Tramway Group’s founder, George Oakley, first began to build model trams for his son in 1946. They were made from card mounted on pieces of Meccano and were originally clockwork but soon changed to electric power. The scale and gauge is unique to the group and developed by accident, based on the size of a piece of Meccano, – a piece which is still brought to every exhibition they attend!
The tramcars really are big, and so is the track. With a length of almost 13m, it is the longest layout in the exhibition. The operating team encourage all the visitors, especially supervised children, to have a go at driving one of the cars.
In addition to the working cars on the layout, there should also be a static display of vintage tram car models which are too old and fragile to use.
Photos © unknown, believed Manchester Evening Chronicle, 1951
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Napier Road
(Scale: O, 7mm/ft, track gauge: 31mm)
Napier Road is a fictious layout set in the early 1960s in the North Eastern Region of British Railways. With the demise of steam, new diesel locos were appearing on the nation’s railways, making the layout quite distinctive, as we run only ‘green diesel era’ locos.
We operate examples of the new classes of locos that were coming onto the scene at the time including: Deltics, Peaks, English Electric Type 4s and 3s, Brush Type 2s, BRCW Type 2s and BR shunters. In 1974, these were reclasified under the TOPS scheme as Classes 55, 45, 40, 37, 31, 27 and 08s, respectively.The layout is DCC, powered by Digitrax and many locos are fitted with sound.
More details about the lahout can be found at https://www.sdrmweb.co.uk/Napier_Road.php
Photos © Ian Harper
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New Sharon
(Scale: On2, ¼”/ft , track gauge: ½”)
New Sharon is the third of my Maine (USA) 2ft narrow gauge layouts, but unlike the first two, New Sharon has been designed as a purely exhibition diorama style layout. I was inspired by a photo of a wooden trestle bridge on the proposed line linking the Sandy River Railway at Farmington with the sea at Wiscasset which, sadly, was never opened despite nearly all the trackbed, bridges, and station buildings being completed and ready for track-laying. I have modelled the station at New Sharon on the assumption that the line did actually open, and consequently built up a healthy traffic in trunk hauls from the large Sandy River system down to the harbour for trans-shipment into schooners sailing up and down the New England coast. The trackplan is simple, with a passing loop and one siding that serves a potato warehouse; hopefully the scene will provide a pleasing backdrop for genuine Sandy River trains, drifting through the village with its New England clap-board buildings and then across the embankment on to the trestle bridge over the Sandy River.
The layout was featured in the Dec 2024 edition of Continental Modeller.
Photos © Terry Smith
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Old Parrock
(Scale: OO, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Old Parrock is a small hamlet and coal yard on a fictitious line at the northern edge of Ashdown Forest in East Sussex; its name is derived from a small nearby settlement.. It is assumed that the line was originally built as a light railway and traffic was sparse, thus requiring only short passenger trains and minimal freight trains.
The models of the watermill and mill cottage are models of buildings at Tablehurst Farm near East Grinstead. The mill was demolished in 1933 but the cottages still exist. The coal office is a typical LBSC goods lock-up and the station building is a reduced version of those found on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. The railway is set in the pre-grouping era allowing trains from both the LBSCR and the SECR to be seen.
The layout was built by a member of the Pendon Museum team (whose display stand it faces) and designed to fit in a small shed 7ft 4” long. Old Parrock has been featured in MRJ 284, Railway Modeller (Sept 2024 and BRM (April 2025).
Photo © Paul Rhode
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Port du Crozon
(Scale: 1/50, track gauge: 18.2mm)
Port du Crozon is the debut appearance of the long-awaited new layout from the acclaimed modellers Gordon & Maggie Gravett. Their previous model, Arun Quay, won the MMRS Challenge Cup in 2018 and followed that success with the Railway Modeller Cup the next year.
Port du Crozon follows the theme of another of their previous layouts, Penpoul, and represents a small terminus station on a 1 metre gauge line to a fictitious fishing village on the Crozon peninsular in Brittany. It is set in the 1950s and is built to a scale of 1:50.
No pictures of this brand new layout have yet been released, but this picture of Penpoul, courtesy of Continental Modeller, illustrates what you can expect to see.
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Porth Dinllaen MPD
(Scale: OO, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
This layout won the MMRS Centenary Micro-layout competition and is making its public debut at this exhibition.
There is a strong case that the Cambrian Coast Line which terminates at Pwllheli could have been extended the 8 miles to Porth Dinllaen. There were several proposals so to do with an eye on a potential sea route to Ireland, including one from Brunel as early as the 1830s.
If it had been built, the nature of the topography there would have required an approach through a tunnel to a new harbour and the only logical position for the MPD would be a site surrounded by walls to retain the unstable cliffs. It would have to be accessed under a road bridge close to where the mainline emerged from the tunnel.
The layout was built as an entry to the MMRS Centenary Challenge. This restricted the overall dimensions to 2000mm long by 450mm wide. Nearly all of the length is devoted to the layout with a small area at the right-hand end for locomotive cassette drop-in and the DCC-DX control and DCC control electronics.
For further information please visit https://pdmpd.noteplease.com
Photo © Rob Ogden
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St Ruth
(Scale: 2FS, 2mm/ft, track gauge: 9.42mm)
St Ruth is making a welcome return, having won the MMRS Challenge Cup in 2017. It is a 2mm Finescale mainline terminus based on Penzance in Cornwall. The layout is owned and operated by members of Midland Group of the 2mm Association. The group decided to model the pre 1938 track plan and include an additional branch to Porthminster loosely based on the traffic of the Hayle Wharf and St Ives branchlines. The stock and operating sequence represent a 24hr weekday period in September 1965 and is based on working timetables from the period.
All the track is built using soldered components and jigs obtained from the 2mm Scale Association. The signals are built from MSE etches (plus a few custom ones) and operated by servos. The buildings and backscenes are scratchbuilt using mainly card and accurately represent Penzance, measured on site or scaled from photographs from the period where not possible. The sea wall is hand scribed and watercolour painted DAS clay. The beach at Penzance is not very exciting, so St Ruth’s beach has been taken from St Bees, Cumbria.
Some locos have been built from scratch aid kits but most are mainly re-wheeled commercial models. Coaches are likewise, but the goods stock has been built exclusively from 2mm Association kits. Most couplings are DGs, but some stock is in fixed rakes.
Photos © Layout owner
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Three Cocks Junction
(Scale: EM, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 18.2mm)
Three Cocks Junction was a station on the Cambrian Railway’s mid Wales section at the junction with the Midland Railway line from Hereford to Brecon and Swansea. The period is c.1907 which allows for a variety of stock in the most attractive liveries of the time. The model attempts to capture the rural and rather remote setting, typical of such Cambrian junction stations.
The station area is fairly true to the prototype, but nothing now remains. The station building was demolished about 20yrs ago; the site is now an industrial estate whilst along the Hereford line now stand a large garden centre. Going south towards Brecon lies the stationmaster’s house, which still exists. North towards Llanidloes there is even more modellers’ license although most of the structures are based on actual buildings along the line of the surrounding area. The viaduct, designed by Benjamin Piercy still exists and now takes a minor road, the following portal is the south end of Rhayader tunnel.
All of the Cambrian locomotive and coaching stock is built from my own kits (brandname ‘Camkits’) the majority of the freight stock is scratchbuilt from plastic sheet and section. Much of the Midland stock was purchased from the ‘Ambergate’ layout many years ago, with additional stock i built mainly from Slaters kits. Trackwork is handbuilt using Exactoscale chairs and control is analogue using Tortoise point motors and two controllers. Signals are operated with servos. Scenery is largely static grass on cardboard ‘egg crate’ formwork. There’s still a bit to do!
Photos © Layout owner
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Trawsfyndd
(Scale: OO, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 16.5mm)
Trawsfynydd used to be served by a section of the GWR branch line, which ran from Bala to Blaenau Ffestiniog. To the north of the station, the army built its own station to serve the large camp nearby. The line closed to all traffic in 1961, and the trackbed at the Bala end was subsequently severed by the Llyn Celyn reservoir, but the section between Blaenau and Trawsfynydd Power Station reopened in 1964 for nuclear flask traffic. Access from the Bala end being no longer possible, a new section of track – the so-called “Trawsfynydd Link” – was constructed to link the previously separate ex-GWR and ex-LNWR stations in Blaenau Ffestiniog. It finally closed in 1998, although the track remains in situ.
During the 1980s a siding was constructed in the former goods yard at Maentwrog Road serving the explosives factory in Penrhyndeudraeth. This was necessary as locomotive hauled trains had been banned from the usual route along the Cambrian Line owing to concerns regarding the structural condition of Barmouth Bridge.
Passenger trains briefly returned to the station in 1989, using a temporary platform in the old goods yard. These trains ran for one summer in an attempt to encourage tourism at the power station. Few people used the service to visit the power station, most riders travelled “for the ride”, so the following year tourist trains drove to the line’s terminus then reversed, with no-one getting on or off.
Photos © Nick Gurney/Model Rail
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Trerice
(Scale: P4, 4mm/ft, track gauge: 18.83mm)
Trerice is a cameo model built by the late Iain Rice who sadly passed away in October 2022. It forms part of our Timeline Display and honours an exceptional and influential modeller and author. This is how Iain himself described the layout in 2004: –
“This tiny P4 (4mm scale/18.83 mm track gauge) layout depicts a typical set of Cornish ‘pan’ china clay dries and their associated railway facilities as they would have been around 1960. The buildings are all models of originals in the Goss Moor area of Cornwall, and the railway is based on the Wenford Bridge branch near Bodmin.
The layout features the two locomotive types most often associated with the Wenford Bridge line, the ex-LSW Beattie 2-4-0WT and the GW ‘1366’ class dock tanks. Both these models are largely scratchbuilt – as are all the structures, which feature hand-scribed and painted stonework. The scenic work incorporates fragments of genuine Delabole slate waste. The china-clay (Kaolin) is also the real thing.”
Photos © J Clifford