"My Grandfather Went To Work On That!"

The best part of exhibiting a layout a real place near that place is hearing the comments and stories from the people who have a connection with it.

That's one of the reasons we were so much looking forward to bringing Minffordd to Porthmadog this weekend, as well as the chance to catch up with old friends on the FR.

One of the people watching today pointed at the Wickham trolley and told us his us his grandfather from Talsarnau use to be a ganger on the Cambrian Coast Line in around the time we have modelled it and says he used to tell stories about travelling out to work sites on the trolley kept at Porthmadog.

Another visitor told us how he was once a loco fireman based at Pwllheli and recalled how tricky it was to re-start trains from Minffordd on a wet day with the tricky combination of a steep gradient and sharp curve on the line.

Someone very local, who lives right in a house right beside the FR there, was hugely complimentary about the layout, along with many current and former FR volunteers who came along, and it's comments like those which really make the years of dedication which go into to project like this worthwhile.

The second day was a lot more relaxing, with the crew well into the routine of running the layout, and we were grateful to have the assistance of some long-time acquaintances, one of whom was visiting from the other side of the world, and another who's day job is to run the real Cambrian Coast Line, so it was amusing to see if they could manage any better in model form....

Minffordd won't be on show again until the autumn, but there'll be plenty of modelling work to be getting on with, including, I hope, finally getting a DCC chip and speaker into Moelwyn once I finally discover the secrets of how it's been done before.

Keep an eye on our social media pages over the next week or so where we'll be sharing some video clips of the layout in action over the weekend.