David John's 014 layout
Rhyd
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Track Plan

 I had been struggling to find a small terminus to fiddle-yard track plan that would be believable in a Ffestiniog context. Iain Rice published an article  called 'Pont Croesor' in Model Railways Illustrated (MORILL) and I knew instantly that I had found my layout.  It is interesting to operate, not being a 'proper' terminus with the quarry tramway wandering across the main running line, reminiscent of the goods siding at Tan-y-Bwlch before preservation.

Picture
Originally the model had a cassette-type fiddle-yard at the 'downhill' end of the layout, with a much smaller one for the quarry tramway.  For home use, mainly one-man operation, this was fine and the railway ran in this form until Glasgow 2011.  The heat and air-con of the Scottish Exhibition Centre caused the cassette to bend and the hump  backs                    caused all sorts of uncoupling problems.

Picture
So, a new 'marshaling-yard' was built, with curved boards at each end.  This also allowed for a continuous run, which was remarkably helpful when running-in locomotives.  It ran in this form at Narrow Gauge North and all following exhibitions..  The down-side was that it almost doubles set-up time.

However, this format was not manageable at home.  The footprint it required was almost the total floor-space of the workshop; movement only being possible with a crab-like shuffle.  So, as a home layout, the following format evolved.
Picture
This gave more of a feel of a real railway with trains leaving the fiddle-yard, running over the Cob-bach, passing another train at Dinas Manod, before finally arriving and running round at the terminus.  This  required a couple of new sections.  Take-down and re-set-up times are also greatly extended and were the main reason for Rhyd's retirement.

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