Abermelyn

When we moved into our current house (a former pub) I had ideas of filling the spacious attic with a grand plan layout. Like many grand plan layouts, it stuttered and faltered with my mind disappearing off on many tangents whilst little progress was made. Now though, my aim has changed to a more manageable series of “linked cameos” as Iain Rice has put it. Smaller, easier to achieve layouts with set boundaries that can make up a bigger scene. 

Abermelyn is the first of these and the layout shown is the second incarnation, using laser cut baseboards and Peco track to overcome the serious failings of the first. The choice has the benefit of being somewhere that I can run both my standard and narrow gauge stock. 

It was intended that the layout would suit home operation (where my primary interest lies) and be portable should I wish to take it to exhibitions. However, my ideas ran away with me somewhat and the layout has grown from my original plans into a home only layout. I’d need a van, several helpers to take it out on the road and a large injection of enthusiasm for exhibiting.  

Previous to this, my layout efforts had always been as part of a club or group. With my main input being locos, rolling stock and buildings. Abermelyn has many firsts in it for me, notably baseboard construction and electrickery, the latter being mostly a mystery to me. Despite this, I now have a layout that runs well and looks reasonable. There still remains the scenery to make a start on, another first for me, but this layout is definitely a keeper. 

Progress to date has been sporadic at best, preferring to build locos and stock, but really do need to get on with building somewhere to run them. 

The scenic area is 12ft by 2ft. With DCC on the standard gauge and DC on the narrow. There is a traverser fiddle yard for the standard gauge and a fiddle yard for the narrow gauge remains to be built. Backscenes, lighting and fascia boards require adding too. Despite this, several hours have been spent testing, bothering various wagons around the layout.