Introduction

This blog chronicles my experiences in the world of 009 railway modelling.

As a kid, in the late seventies and early eighties I had a 00 scale railway that eventually filled my bedroom. When I went to college, everything was packed away in a cupboard and the room redecorated. Then a few years ago I thought about resurrecting it, made a couple of abortive attempts at a layout before we decided we had to move house and it all got packed away again, and the room redecorated. Then a third layout in the garage of the new house was started.

Although I have bought a fair bit of new track, all the 00 rolling stock is 30 or more years old. Some runs fine okay, but it is showing its age. As I find I have a bit more disposable income now, I want to upgrade the rolling stock, and suddenly now seems the right time to make the break to 009.

It is something that I had thought about as a teenager, but had too much invested in 00 at the time, and was not happy about kit-building. Now I am finally taking the plunge.

Welcome to the Glan-y-môr and Templehill Light Railway!

Glan-y-môr is Welsh for "by the sea" (and should be pronounced "glan uh mawr" I believe), and Templehill takes its name for a Thief mod I created a few years ago. The "G&T" seems to have a nice ring to it!

The plan is to have an urban area with a station at the front, and a spur to a dockside to the left. The "mainline" will curve around behind the town (to a radius of about 14"; hopefully that is going to work), into a large rural area down the right side, the loop back and to the station. There will also be a standard gauge section running from the other side of the platform into a tunnel; basically a single line plus siding to transfer shed. The station and dock areas will be on existing baseboards.

Rolling Stock

There is a chicken-and-egg problem with getting started. I cannot lay track until I know what gradients and curves are going to work with the rolling stock, but how can I test the rolling stock without track?

Anyway, I have ordered a Peco "James" 0-6-0 locomotive, to go on a Graham Farish chassis I got from ebay, as well as two Festiniog style coaches from Parkside Dundas.