LAYOUT IDEAS 2

No 4:  TOWYN  Any gauge...

I've always like this track layout at Towyn on the Talyllyn Railway, as you can fit it into a small space (depending on what scale you are using!). You have a very convenient road brisge at one end, which can hide the fiddle yard and the "end of platform" the other. So it could be used for narrow or standard gauge?






No 5: CYFYLLIOG, Denbighshire  00

Above: The position of this bungalow is where I envisage the station building to be, with the track in front of it.

Above: The 'station house' with the river viewed from the road bridge and the goods yard to the right.



Above: The railway would run to the side of the road, across a level crossing and continue up the valley to the quarries

Many years ago, around 1968/9, I used to stay at my then girlfriend's farm a couple of miles west of the village and someone once told me that the Victorians had wanted to build a railway from Ruthin, as they had been impressed with the railway company's achievements in the South Wales valleys.

I did find an old book which had a reference to a railway being surveyed, but it was rather lacking in any great detail and didn't mention if standard or narrow gauge was prefered, so I had a look around the area and decided a standard gauge line could be feasonable and a narrow gauge one even more so, but you'd have to have transhipment sidings at Ruthin.

Following the River Clywedog to the west of Ruthin, you could branch off the line to Denbigh, just after Ruthin station (where the Craft Centre is today) and head off toward Bontuchel (where you'd have to construct bridges to climb up over the river weirs to the road level as the road leaves Bontuchel.

I envisaged a station/goods yard to be built as the railway entered Cyffylliog (where there is a bungalow standing today) and the railway continuing straight ahead (past the vilage sign) following the curves of the river valley that runs on the other side of the hill  that the 'main' road continues along up to the slate quarries further along, but you'd have to alternative from bank to bank to keep the gradients low, so there would have to be a reasonable amount of bridge, cutting and embankment building.

So you have the choice to build it as a LMS or BR branchline or a narrow gauge layout in 009 or On16.5, either period or preserved.. or perhaps they built a standard gauge railway to Cyffylliog and narrow gauge up to the quarries (or just standard to the terminus at Cyffylliog)...


No.6: FORYD QUAY  00/009 gauge

Above and below: There's not much left of the old quayside now, as the area has been 'improved' or modernised (whichever you want to call it!) with the addition of a marina and apart from this section of old quay and a few 'bones' of old ships, that's about it... the old sheds have long gone...

I started planing this railway layout after seeing a small diesel shunter parked on the quay sometime in the mid 1950s. After some enquiries, I found that BR had a small branch running off the line into Rhyl that ran down to the key, so that small ships could bring in or export goods. There were just a few sidings and a couple of wagons, alongside a large goods shed. With the impressive Foryd bridge or the sea as a background depending which way you looked at it, it was crying out to be modelled.



Above: The Foryd Bridge from the Quay


Although I made the baseboards and laid track, that was as far as I got, apart from carrying on researching. So, yes, It did exist as a standard gauge line, so I thought about dating it in BR Blue, with a couple of Class 24 or 25s or even 20 - or even an 08 or 03/04? with a few fish vans, wagons and general vans in the stock, along with the odd fishing boat and perhaps a lifeboat?  Something along the lines of Neil Rushby's Shell Island?


Above: The remains of long lost ships can still be seen. They were there in the 1950s.The bridge makes a nice entrance to the fiddle yard!

There are plenty of other quays to get inspiration from, such as this one
this one at Lower Fishguard (below).



or this one at Greenfield Dock, near Holywell.



No 7: CARDIGAN  00 gauge

Above: End of the footpath/cycleway on the old trackbedleading into the old station/Goods yard/Fiddle yard

There's a proposal to reinstate the Aberystwyth to Cardigan line and it would go through the Teifi Marshes and Wildlife Park a site of Special Scientific Interest - an area I've spend quite of time there, so I hope the proposal doesn't go through! 

Anyhow this is a "might be" idea and the railway would probably follow the original line of the railway into Cardigan which is now a footpath/cycleway through the Wildlife Park, so you could model how you think they would undertake it. I would imagine still a single line. There is a bypass which passes over the river and ex-railway, which would make a scenic break into the old goods yard/station (fiddle yard), some of which would need to be demolished to rebuild the railway into Cardigan, but the station was the other side of the river bridge and was never that convenient for the town anyhow.

I also envisage the station to be along the lines of Wrexham Central station (one line in - with an option to increase to two - and one or two platforms), with 150s, 158s, 175s and the like operating...  Just a thought, which I hope doesn't go ahead...