Bron Hebog

These were the only snaps I was able to take when the crowds thinned out. Back at Lyle Kirk in Greenock tomorrow from midday.

A very intense first exhibition day for ‘Minffordd’ - I’ve never before run a layout for 7 hours without a break!

Thank you - we fully intend to have a very enjoyable weekend!

The BR (Cambrian Coast) and the Festiniog Railway exchange yard at Minffordd in the mid-1960s.

After nearly three years in the planning & construction the time has come to put Minffordd on show in Greenock this weekend.

It’s been tremendous fun and a great challenge creating this together.

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we’ve enjoyed building it.

Greenock, Scotland, tomorrow and Sunday for its first exhibitions. November it’s in Falkirk and in March next year at the SEC in Glasgow.

This weekend at Greenock with Minffordd will be the first time I’ve been able to attend a debut for one of our FR layouts.

With Dduallt I was over 400 miles away at university.

Two decades on with Bron Hebog I was still 400 miles away busy with work and a young family.

A lot has been achieved in a little over two and a half years. Feb 2023 vs Sept 2025.

It’s 2 years since w filled the gap in Bachmann’s FR ‘Penrhyn Ladies’ range with a 1960s era ‘Blanche’.

To do this we had to buy 2 models to make 1, taking the bottom half of a ‘Linda’ in 0-4-0 condition with original shape cylinders and fixing that to the body of a ‘Blanche’.

A final afternoon of yard shunting rehearsals ahead of the big debut for Minffordd next weekend.

Anyone who tells you practice makes perfect with Kadee couplings is lying!

They are wee bastards and will do as they damn well please, every single time!

But beneath the fancy paintwork it was really a Toleman, of course. By the way, really nice Colossally episode on Bruce McLaren, particularly enjoyed the counter-factual ‘what if’ segment, could that sort of thing be encouraged in future pods?

A layout is never ‘finished’.

Less than a week until it’s public debut and tonight a rush order for more slate stacks for Minffordd Yard.

Out with the resin, then….

Spending the last few days preparing for the Minffordd debut by flicking a dry brush in the general direction of the Cambrian passenger stock to make it look less ‘out of the box’.

I must say for a 40-year-old model those ex-Mainline Collett carriages still look the business to me.

A motor-less Moelwyn.

We haven’t the ingenuity (bravery?) to shoehorn a decoder, speaker & stay alive into the Great War veteran tractor, but it would have been a frequent visitor to Minffordd yard in the 1960s, so Himself decided it should be a static exhibit on the layout.

Thank you, yes it is! Only had an hour or so at a time playing with it so far, so looking forward to our first exhibition weekend in a fortnight.

Testing out the DCC on the Dukedog. Some playing about required with the CVs on the Loksound chip to try to get it to coast a bit more, but it looks right at home on Minffordd.

(As the window sticker on the car might say, our other locos have Zimos onboard.)

Layout building & exhibiting is always a team effort and we must record our thanks to ‘Herself’ for machining up a new set of drapes as the finishing touch for Minffordd.

A day discovering Churchward tenders weren’t designed for the digital age - and maybe these gizmos need to come with more idiot-proof instructions! Got there in the end, though. A chuffing Dukedog for Minffordd.

3 years ago, I drew first life-size sketch of what would become Minffordd.

I wasn’t thinking big enough to consider we could include the transfer yard and ridiculously optimistic in thinking the narrow gauge could do a handbrake turn at each end and have a common fiddle yard.

New backscene in position - something else crossed off the list with 3 weeks to go until the first showing of Minffordd.

A couple of hours uninterrupted at the bench - a rare pleasure recently - working out a way to fix the cylinders for the NG15 onto the chassis and secure both onto the body print.

Still very much a work in progress.

A former FR staffer, who takes a keen interest in our progress from across the pond, recently suggested our model of Minffordd in the 1960s should have a nod to a local farmer, Evan, and his sheepdog Fly who were often to be seen nearby.

Done!

Double Double Fairlies! With the finishing touches being applied to our 1960s-style ‘Merddin Emrys’ we took the chance to pose it next to to our un-butchered Bachmann ‘Earl of Merioneth’.

I know it’s been causing some sleepless nights - well, for Himself at any rate - so delighted to be able to confirm Minffordd DOES fit in the boot of the car!

Now to sandwich the two boards face-to-face without breaking trees or telegraph poles…

A little birthday present to myself - and why not! - ordered a chip to make my Dukedog chuff.

Another loco for the Minffordd Cambrian fleet (yes, I know it’s a teeny bit out of era but Rule 1 applies!).

A weekend time travelling in rural Lanarkshire with the Greenock club’s layout ‘Inches’ at the exhibition in Troon.

This is another layout you can see at our show in Greenock next month as well as ‘‘Minffordd’.

Which is all the more reason to come and see it in Manchester in December! www.mmrs.co.uk/exhibition/

11 years ago we put up the complete Bron Hebog for the first time in Woking.

Sometimes it feels like this layout’s had the life cycle of a modernisation plan diesel loco: does very little work, spends most of its time in store, withdrawn after just over a decade 😂

“Have you heard? It’s exactly a month until Minffordd makes its exhibition debut in Greenock.”

“Is that right? I was told they haven’t checked if it fits in the back of the car yet…..”

More waggon weathering repurposing some of the fleet from the famous Dduallt gravity train for use on Minffordd.

Slate waggons weren’t as prized as they are these days but they did get some moments of limelight, particularly around the 1963 centenary celebrations.