Layout History

In summer 2015, I was working as a driver on the 10.25" miniature railway at Gypsy Wood Park near Caernarfon, when a colleague, who ran the large LGB garden railway there, said he was looking for layouts to attend a small charity model railway show at Hafan-y-Mor holiday park near Pwllheli, and did I have anything I could show - in two weeks time. At the time, I had little I felt I could offer - my old OO branch terminus was beyond renovation, my 009 micro had not been touched for years and was far from complete, with very little stock ready.... but I knew I had a part built oval of N-gauge track, with a rough bit of raw polystyrene scenery in store somewhere, and a box full of Canadian N Gauge stock I had bought back from when I lived in Canada in the mid '80's, subsequently added to sporadically. In the '90's I had tried recreating the Canadian Rockies in miniature, but the plan was flawed and hopelessly optimistic and it got abandoned before a train ever ran, but I thought I might just be able to get this oval into a presentable state in the two weeks available. I knew I had all the scenic materials in a box somewhere, so I committed to exhibit something for the show! And so I attended my first show as an exhibitor with Beaver Lake Pass (suitable Canadian sounding but with a personal touch, as I went to school in Beverley (Beaver Lake), East Yorkshire.) It actually looked okay, and performed well, though some of the older stock expired and were retired even before the show. I met some great fellow exhibitors, and it gave me the "bug" to do more exhibiting. The layout has not been exhibited since, but in autumn 2018 I am looking at refurbishing it, and it will be available to exhibit again to show that you don't need a lot of space to have a simple layout where you can just watch the trains go by. It's not the most exciting of layouts, and certainly not operationally challenging, but it can be quite relaxing, just watching a procession of different-looking trains in the landscape

Layout Description

The layout is a simple oval, with a fiddle yard to the rear, using cassettes to store trains. The scenic treatment hopefully gives a flavour of the wide open spaces of the Canadian Rockies, with forests and mountains as the backdrop. In a space of 4 ft by 1 ft, a little bit of imagination and compromise are necessary! A small farmstead is the only sign of habitation. A procession of trains rolls by hauling freight and passengers to distant locations.

Layout Specification

Exhibition Details:-

Layout Size - 4' wide. 2' deep. Operating space approx 4' deep required behind layout.

Operated from rear, viewed from front

Scale 2mm/ft, N Gauge

No. of Operators - 1

Programme Description - Beaver Lake Pass represents a secondary line high in the Canadian Rockies, operated by the Canadian Pacific company, vaguely set somewhere between the 1950's and the 1970's. A variety of steam and diesel locomotives can be seen hauling passenger and freight trains over the lonely, high pass between snow-topped peaks.

Exhibitions Attended:-

Hafan y Mor, Pwllheli - July 2015