At this point in time...

Above, is my first and other 009 layout... It's called 'Nant Gwernol' and a fairly accurate model of the Talyllyn Railway's Nant Gwernol terminus, except that it includes an 'extension', nominally to link to the Corris Railway (which there were once plans to do so) and a slate quarry on a second higher level (where one never existed, the quarries were further up into the hills). There is also an extra siding running to a Dolgoch Falls style water tower [in reality this would be in a ravine!].

A lot of progress was made as can be seen in the photo, but the slate quarry area never really got going (although I had drawn the plans for a scratchbuilt dressing mill) and FR/WHR interests took over from Talyllyn.

From the start of the Rhyd Ddu project I was in two minds as to whether I should rob this layout of parts to help with the costs of the new layout. Well, I managed to avoid robbing anything that is visible to the viewer i.e. track, points etc.

However, today I removed the 4 point motors for use on Rhyd Ddu (to save time, money and some soldering). The other reason for doing this is that I have long admired the modratec ground frame system (pic below) and would love to have one of these on my layout. The reason for not using one on Rhyd Ddu was because you can't use it to power point motors via DPDT switches. Well, on a small one-board layout like Nant Gwernol, the alternative 'wire in tube' method is a lot easier to install and maintain.

So, the point motors and peco switches will be recycled to use on Rhyd Ddu and the other equipment such as the CDU will be sold on ebay. A sad day taking apart bits of one model, but at least it's for a good cause and that I have an alternative plan for the layout long-term....

Colin