Scale: ‘0:16.5’ [7mm Scale on 16.5mm gauge].
Talybont is a model based on a typical Welsh narrow gauge railway. These lines were built to transport slate down from the hills to ports or mainline railways and passenger carrying was often a secondary consideration. The model assumes the continuation of the slate traffic alongside a growing tourist passenger operation.
The name was taken from a village on the former Plynlimon and Hafan Tramway north of Aberystwyth, but the layout is not a model of any particular line.
Talybont Station is the bottom terminus of the railway. There is a passenger station as well as the locomotive shed, a small goods yard and the exchange sidings where the slate is unloaded into standard gauge wagons for onward transport. The standard gauge wagons in the exchange siding allow the onlooker to contrast standard and narrow gauge stock.
The layout can also be assembled with a passing loop, Trem-yr-Aifft, between the station and the fiddleyard. At present this section is not used as we need to construct a new fiddleyard to fit this part of the layout.
The locomotives are mainly built from kits and include locomotives from the Talyllyn and Festiniog Railways, the Glyn Valley Tramway, the Penrhyn, Llanberis and Port Dinorwic quarry railways and even a Scottish visitor from the Campbeltown and Macrihanish Railway.
The station building at Talybont is a model of Wharf station and the engine shed is based on Pendre, both at Tywyn, mid Wales, on the Talyllyn Railway.
A passenger train waits for departure time in the station at Talybont.
