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Aberystwyth & Rheidol Valley


RJS1977
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As there seems to be quite a bit of interest in another thread about the various 'Aberystwyth' layouts I have constructed over the years, I thought I'd start a thread.

 

If memory serves, I think the project commenced back in the late 80s when my father allowed me to construct a layout round two walls of my bedroom rather than the 3' x 4' oval which had previously resided on the spare bed! We called in at the real station one time to take photographs, and a friend of my father's lent me some books to photocopy relevant pages from with the words "You'll never model Aberystwyth - it's too big!", which I took as a challenge (he didn't realise I'd previously considered modelling Paddington or Birmingham Snow Hill....)

 

So here is Aberystwyth Mark 1, which I think finished up something like this (10' x  6'10" L shape):

 

26349117879_61a0eba0c1_z.jpg

 

The layout depicts Aberystwyth in the 1930s, viewed from the south side.

 

As it's now some twenty years since this version was dismantled when my parents moved house, precise details are a little unclear in my mind - in particular I think the loco release crossovers and the crossover at the end of the bay platform may have been the other way round (yes, the one at the end of the bay definitely was as I used to run coal trains off the branch into the longer platform road, run round them and take them back to the fiddle yard the other way).

 

Likewise there may have been a crossover partway along that platform to allow a long passenger train in the far platform to be run round. The loco shed was cunningly designed to disguise the sharp curve by which the Machynlleth line returned to the fiddle yard. The fiddle yard was 6" wide, the station was split into three boards, two 42" x 10" and one 36" x 12".

 

A hand-drawn backscene sat behind the long edge of the layout, depicting the northernmost platform (1 or 5 depending on which numbering scheme is in use!), most of the goods yard (including a VoR loco on a well wagon), the University building and Constitution Hill with its cliff railway. This backscene is still in existence in storage in my parents' loft but is not destined for further use. 

 

Despite the sharp curves, non-prototypical stock (the Carmarthen branch train was a Nellie in GWR green hauling three Hornby four-wheel coaches, and the Cambrian Coast Express included both a Triang Mark 1 in GWR colours and a clerestory!), it was a layout which gave me a lot of fun to build and to operate (I derived a sequence timetable from the 1938 Bradshaw), possibly because I kept the electrics fairly simple (a lesson I was to forget later!).

 

In 1997, the track was lifted and carefully labelled so the layout could be resurrected in the future. Instead, a new layout was to emerge, but that's another story....

Edited by RJS1977
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There have been a couple of other models over the years - I can remember one in the 'Student Modeller' part of RM, and there was a layout back in the 70s which included a number of stations on the Cambrian Coast Express route (including Paddington, Snow Hill, Mach and Pwheli!), though obviously with a large amount of compression/omission.

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A year or so after Mk1 was dismantled, I graduated from University, got a job, and rented a terraced house with two friends. No way was Mark 1 going to fit in my new room, so the track was recycled to make what turned out to be Mk2a, which laid the foundations for all subsequent versions.

 

38125715961_dae2b84bd4_b.jpg 

 

The layout was operated from the opposite (reverse) side to Mk1, mainly owing to the presence of a large walk-in cupboard at the left hand end, meaning that the fiddle yard had to be removable for access, so needless to say, the cupboard was only used when absolutely necessary! The station was split over two boards, partly for ease of transport and partly to enable the possibility of inserting an extra section half way along the platforms (which has never happened owing to the need to extend the fiddle yard by the same amount). The platforms were slightly shorter than those on Mk1 (necessitating reducing the CCE to four coaches), but were 6" wider, allowing Platform 1/5 with its run-round loop, and the goods reception road to be modelled.

 

The main lines, Platform 1/5, and the goods line were connected to a rotary switch, which allowed each section to be operated in turn. Extra feeds/switches were of course needed for the branch lines and loco shed but again electrically simple and good fun to operate.

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Note that the facing point on the Down line, and the point adjacent to it going towards the bay platform needed modification so they could overlap to fit the space, but I can't do that so easily in SCARM!

I use two bits of plain track where pointwork won't fit. Add a section of flexitrack for one road, then temporarily move it to an empty space. Then add the other road. Move the first road back, and attach it to the diverging track.

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After three years in that house share, my housemates got married (not to each other!) and, with nobody to share the rent with, I was on the move again. This time I wound up in the ground floor flat of a converted house, with a much larger bedroom (probably about 11'6" each way, with a bay window on one side. The door, window, fireplace and heater left one long straight wall to the right of the door. It was at this point that I discovered my woodwork left something to be desired, as, when I put 10' of layout along an 11'6" wall, the hinged legs caused all three boards to tilt to the right, as there was no wall at one end to keep everything upright!

 

The obvious solution was to extend the layout by 18" so the walls would hold everything in place again. I contemplated slipping the extra section halfway along the platforms, but without a corresponding increase in the fiddle yard, this was of little benefit, so instead I opted to build an 18" square baseboard to house the station building and the street outside (Mark 2b). Originally this section had legs of its own, until I found someone throwing out a shelving unit of exactly the right dimensions to go under this board.

 

With plenty of space to go at, the next move was to add more of the goods yard to the front of the layout. Initially this was shorter than the station buildings behind, to allow me to open the bedroom door, but after a while I added a mainly scenic lifting flap to bring the front and rear sections up to the same length. The fiddle yard was widened to allow access to the extra sidings (Mark 2c):

 

24297468578_600316dbd6_b.jpg

 

By now the loco fleet had started to grow somewhat, so thoughts moved on to expanding the loco yard. Find out what happened in the next exciting installment!

Edited by RJS1977
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As the loco fleet grew, it became clear the loco yard wasn't big enough, so I constructed two more boards to fit between the station and the fiddle yard. This allowed the turntable, coaling plant, exchange siding between the Carmarthen line and the VoR, and the bridge carrying the Carmarthen line over the VoR and the river to be modelled (at least in part). Construction of this board was "interesting" to say the least, given the number of levels involved and the need to make a hole for the turntable. The 'table was constructed at home from a length of ply, Airfix parts and some bits of Meccano and has a (rather noisy!) Frizzinghall mechanism in it. The Carmarthen line was rigged up to an auto shuttle.

 

38138811972_c69043a324_b.jpg

 

Sadly, with hindsight,this expansion was where the problems started. Whilst in theory, the expansion increased the operating potential of the layout, in practice, the added electrical complexity led to unreliability - not helped by the fact I left the original D connector for the previous versions in place in case it ever became necessary to revert to a smaller configuration in future. The D connectors to the new boards were intended to replicate this. I also overcomplicated matters by designing the new panel to be capable of independent operation on the Up and Down lines, goods yard and loco depot. The net result was that the panel became extremely cramped (especially when the electric pencil studs for point control were added), and fault finding became a nightmare!

 

 

As a result of the expansion, there was now sufficient space behind the standard gauge fiddle yard to include a representation of Devil's Bridge (4' long x 1' wide at the widest point):

 

 

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Again with hindsight I made a number of errors:

 

1) I used N gauge track rather than 009, simply because I happened to have some.

2) With the idea of exhibiting in mind, I designed this part of the layout to be capable of being boxed up and taken on public transport. This resulted in the baseboard being split into two 2' modules, which in turn led to a number of tracks crossing the board join. As a result, extra time and effort had to be expended each time it was set up. Sadly the quality of my efforts wasn't really up to exhibition standard and it attended less than half a dozen shows in total, its last being in temporary Austrian guise, enabling me to run my Zillertalbahn stock. This module will form part of the next version of the layout (albeit in need of some TLC), and is the only part to have been operated since my last house move (just to check it still works!). The two 2' modules have been permanently joined with new fascia boards (and 'Devil's Bridge' totems), however the advent of Eddie Fields's excellent model of the same station has led to my decision to retire the layout from public display (at least in Devil's Bridge format - if I can come up with a suitable way of transporting the complete 4' model, it may make some more appearances in Austrian mode).

 

Operation of DB at shows could get 'interesting' - it was all to easy to be distracted by a visitor, then find I'd managed to bring two passenger trains into the station without running round either of them, leaving both locos trapped at the buffers, and with no isolating sections, no way of coupling another loco on the other end!

 

This was almost the ultimate version of the layout - more about that next time!

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As my collection of 009 stock grew, clearly I needed more 009 track space. The solution was provided by moving Devil's Bridge round to the other side of the bay window (supported by an ironing board!) and adding two further sections - the curve immediately outside DB (which I'd fancied having a go at for a while as it was quite attractive scenically), and the passing loop at Aberffrwd (with hindsight I would have had more siding space had I gone for Capel Bangor!). 

 

The extra boards are shown below (Part 2e).

 

37482420504_d19f2a19d2_b.jpg

 

 

Various side-projects around this time included making a shoebox-sized model of the original VoR loco sheds (originally for a challenge at Expo Narrow Gauge, but later exhibited at other events, either in its own right - very boring to operate! - or attached to other end of DB's fiddle yard, and a diorama based on the timber bridge over the Rheidol, for photographing/displaying spare stock.

 

For the first Kenavon show, I went the whole hog and displayed

 

Devil's Bridge + Mill Curve + Aberffrwd + Rheidol Bridge + DB fiddle yard + Aberystwyth old loco depot.

 

Not the easiest thing to set up when you've got the rest of the show to organise as well!

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It was only after Mark 2d was built that I realised that had I - by a quirk of fate - had my flatmate's room instead, I could have laid out a layout very similar to Mark 1 round two sides of the room, but with the Cambrian main line disappearing out through the sash window, past the gasworks/Llanbadarn 'box (conveniently sited outside the living room window for operation from the sofa) and on to a reversing loop in the garden shed! I'm not sure what my landlady would have made of it, though.....

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The 'Preserved Railways' thread reminds me of another version of Aberystwyth (indeed two versions), which were sketched out but never built.

 

One was an idea to turn the exhibition fiddle yard for Devil's Bridge into a model of the VoR platforms at the current Aberystwyth.

 

The other was a much larger plan to build a portable model of the current VoR platforms and loco shed at Aberystwyth, including possibly the standard gauge line, with the VoR disappearing on to a 'fiddle siding' behind the shed. The advantage of this was that I had the loco shed and side station building 'in stock' already on the main layout. This layout could have been capable of exhibition on its own or potentially with Devil's Bridge and any of the other 'Rheidol Valley' modules. Lack of storage space and time precluded its construction, which was probably just as well!

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  • 1 month later...

My father will be coming in a few weeks to deliver the baseboards he's made which will allow construction of the latest version to begin.

 

Only trouble is - I've just picked up the latest Model Rail which includes a wonderful plan of Aberystwyth modelled from the other side (i.e. with the Carmarthen platforms in the inside of the U rather than the goods yard).

 

Probably fortunately, I don't think it will fit in the space I have available....

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Thanks, Dave.

 

When I first started pulling information for the project together about 25 years ago, a friend told me "You'll never model it - it's too big!" If he was trying to put me off, his words had the opposite effect....

 

Naturally, though a good number of compromises have had to be made, most notably restricting the Carmarthen line to railcars and auto trains

 

Having had a good measure up last night, I have reluctantly had to accept that the Model Rail plan cannot be reduced to fit the space I have available.

 

Richard

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  • 3 weeks later...

It was - I ran a Bachmann 64XX round from the fiddle yard, over where Llanbadarn Crossing will be and as far as the site of Aberytswyth signalbox - it can't get any further at the moment owing to a known (and longstanding) electrical gremlin.

 

I've also spotted a couple of issues with the fiddle yard entry, but they should be easy enough to solve.

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It was - I ran a Bachmann 64XX round from the fiddle yard, over where Llanbadarn Crossing will be and as far as the site of Aberytswyth signalbox - it can't get any further at the moment owing to a known (and longstanding) electrical gremlin.

 

I've also spotted a couple of issues with the fiddle yard entry, but they should be easy enough to solve.

 

And indeed now have been... :-)

 

The crossover from the Up Line to Platform 3 has now been (temporarily) fitted, which hopefully means I can now operate the station - with tank engines as the turntable still has to be reconnected.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've recently discovered some photos of Mark 2d:

 

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As regards progress on the current version of the layout, the down line has now been placed in position following a purchase of more track at the weekend, however I now need to lift the up line to replace a couple of points and to ease a clearance.

 

The edge of the grey paint in the above photo shows the edge of the boards which were re-used for the current version.

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And some more 'archive' photos, this time of the narrow gauge section:

 

40178492892_e55213c3dc_z.jpg

 

40178493242_e72b13a23a_z.jpg

 

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The last image is of a previously-unmentioned model of the pre-1968 VoR loco depot at Aberystwyth. The model was originally constructed for a 'Showbox Challenge' and made a number of exhibition appearances, either on its own (where it proved to be spectacularly boring to operate) or as an adjunct to Devil's Bridge's fiddle yard.

 

The model was incorporated into the Mark 2e layout (albeit in a non-prototypical location) and may possibly also appear in Mark2f, along with the viaduct section.

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