Recently one of the followers on our Facebook page posted a comment asking if we'd ever considered connecting together our two Festiniog layouts Dduallt and Minffordd.
It's an interesting question, and the answer why we probably won't includes a number of hurdles we would have to overcome, so I thought it might make the basis of a decent blog piece.
I have to say it's a beguiling idea, and one I've often toyed with while daydreaming.
Long before we embarked on the Minffordd project I would often think wouldn't it be nice to have the space to set up Dduallt as a home layout, and instead of operating it end-to-end between fiddle yards - as we do at exhibitions - make it into a continuous run.
My daydream was always that we could have Dduallt on one side and Tan y Bwlch at the other, perhaps with an exit to a storage / fiddle yard as well, perhaps making use of the truncated route to the disused Moelwyn Tunnel behind the signal box.
That plan has never gone any further than a daydream, however.
So, now that we have two layouts, why not try to connect them now?
Here are the things you'd have to overcome.
HEIGHTS
As you would expect for model of Dduallt Spiral the layout is not flat!
Therefore the entry / exit points to the fiddle yards at each end of the run are at different levels.
Having never compared the measurements it’s also entirely possible that the height off the ground of the FR mainline on Minffordd is different yet again.
To connect them would inevitably involve some degree of ‘ski ramp’ at each end and the height that would have to be climbed by ascending trains would dictate how long these ramps have to be - which would have an impact on the viability of the idea.
CONTROL
As it stands the two layouts are using different systems.
Dduallt was built for plain old DC whereas Minffordd is all-singing DCC with sound.
It wouldn’t be impossible to lash-up a way to make them work together on either control system, but, you couldn’t use both as once, nor would the stock be interchangeable.
And that’s an issue because Dduallt and its steep gradient was built assuming we would always use heavy white metal or brass locomotives with the traction to pull reasonable trains up the hill.
The latest ready to run locos - lovely as they are - really can’t cope with anything other than flat layout with our stock.
ERAS
The other consideration - albeit the one that’s easiest to overlook - is that the layouts are set around 20 years apart.
Minffordd is depicted in the generic 1960s and Dduallt at the end of the 1980s with stock that’s anything up to the present day.
ORIENTATION
The logical thing would be to have the layouts positioned back-to-back.
Unfortunately, that would see Up trains leaving Minffordd emerging on the Deviation on Dduallt as if they’d just left Tanygrisiau, and the same in the opposite direction.
To be prototypical the connections would need a crossover at some point, making them much more complicated to build.
SPACE
Of course, the biggest obstacle is simply where we would ever find the room to put it all together to test and play with it.
Unless anyone wants to donate a large, secure, space somewhere on the west coast of Scotland to us? No, thought not…
