Tal Coed is a small 009 scale layout which was built to a very tight timetable due to an exhibition booking mix up. In the absence of any time to spend on meticulous long-term planning, a design was lifted from a 1980 issue of Railway Modeller which had been drawn and described by the late Roy Link. This took the prototype situation of Dolgoch on the Tal-y-llyn Railway and built it into a small case. This plan was closely copied, excepting the viaduct that featured which was reduced to a small cattle creep bridge under the line.
The layout is a fairly modest 48" x 19" in size, is not fully cased, but open at the back to allow for a small storage yard. This gives an operating style of multiple short narrow gauge trains running through a simple scene which contains a cottage, two bridges and the Tal-y-llyn station shelter and water tower from Dolgoch. All these items were scratch-built from Wills scenic materials. Tal-coed is the perfect small 009 exhibition layout and appeared at many general and specialist narrow gauge shows including ExpoNG in Swanley where it was presented with the Reinier Hendriksen Trophy for freelance narrow gauge modelling in 2013. It also appeared in Railway Modeller magazine in the same year.
The layout is now in the care of Phil Farr-Cox from Somerset and is still exhibited from time to time.
All photos: Andrew Burnham/Peco Publications  |
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| Doug pulls into Tal-coed halt |
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| Beyer Peacock |
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| Susan draws a short passenger train across the cattle creep |
