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Mawgan Porth

LSWR on the North Cornish Coast.
Using baseboards inherited from our late Treasurer, Maurie Graves, a new Club EM gauge layout was planned. With stock inherited from Maurie and Roger Plumley, the layout would have to have a LSWR flavour. The plan is based on Bude but modified principally so as to bring the harbour branch within the baseboard length. The baseboards are small enough to fit into one car.  

The pointwork is scratch built on copperclad sleepers; otherwise the track is SMP. The points are operated by Tortoise motors. Thanks to the help of a Club Member, a method of ballasting, new to us, was used; a liquid floor polish was dripped on to the spread ballast. This sets solid. So far this has proved very satisfactory.

 There are three controllers (main, yard, and loco/ harbour). Some roads can be switched to the main from the other two to enable the main controller to run-round trains arriving in the platforms. The loco/harbour controller can be used from either side of the layout. When a section is switched on, an appropriately colour LED indicates which controller is in charge of that section. The switching is done automatically according to the setting of the road.

To hide the fiddle yard cassettes, a back-scene is used (removable for transport purposes). This has in front of it a series of typical Cornish harbour-side buildings. Because the freight stock has 3-link couplings, easy access is paramount, so any back-scene on the remainder of the layout has to take that into account.