Welcome to the Merseyside MRS
‘OO’ Gauge GWR Steam layout 

CWMBACH-YN-TRIARRD

The Great Western Group of the MMRS is currently (re)constructing what will be an exhibition layout based, on an industrial Welsh valley in the mid 1930’s. The layout is named “Cwmbach Yn Triardd” and those people who know us will understand the play on words – we’ve nearly given up many times!! The fictitious location of Cwmbach Yn Triardd has a large Iron & Steel works, is close to the coal fields, and the valley is rare in having a through railway line connecting the ports of South Wales to the industrial Midlands of England. Whilst the line is Great Western built, owned and operated, the LMS has obtained running rights. The rolling stock is therefore predominantly GWR local and long distance goods traffic, with some local and through passenger working. However there is the occasional LMS traffic, principally through freight workings, but the odd rake of maroon coaches will be seen.

The layout was originally intended to be constructed using hand built “OO” finescale track on the public viewing sections and Peco finescale in the fiddle yard. Unfortunately, the track proved to be unreliable, due mainly to poor construction of the track itself and, just as importantly, the baseboards. (it should be stated here, that none of the current group members have had any experience of constructing an exhibition layout, let alone one with hand built track). In addition, we quickly realised that the original track plan wasn’t interesting enough – and so a group decision was made to a) redesign the track plan, b) scrap the hand built track and change to Peco finescale throughout and c) refurbish the baseboards to eliminate poor end on end joints, uneven surfaces and provide cork sheet underlay throughout the layout, including the fiddle yard which was widened from an original 8 storage tracks to the current 17.

Whilst the above work was being carried out in 2002/2003 we also made the decision to change to DCC control – which at the time was a brave decision, that led to a steep learning curve, but which has subsequently proved to be the correct way to go.

In the last two years we’ve been heavily involved in achieving reliable running, constructing scenery, buildings etc and, whilst we’ve still a lot to be done, our current target is to have the layout ready for exhibiting from late 2007.

Our aim is to have layout on which there will always be trains moving, shunting taking place and the opportunity for members of the public to have a go at controlling locos and changing points from the handheld “throttles”.

Hopefully, we’ll update progress and setbacks on the layout on the website every 6 months or so.