The inspiration for ‘Penmaenbach’ came about because of one of the few periods when I was able to get out to see and photograph real trains was the Railfreight/Speedlink era in the early 1980s. This was mainly in North West England around Liverpool and Warrington, but I also managed visits to the North Wales coast, the Cardiff area and the South West.
I have quite an interest in the North Wales railways and enjoy models of them - possibly started by a fond memory of a fine model of Holywell Town seen at the Merseyside Model Railway exhibition at the Bluecoat Chambers as a teenager in the 1970s, and reinforced by the superb P4 model ‘Mostyn’, currently seen on the exhibition circuit. I had previously built layouts of areas and eras I had not seen in numerous scales and gauges, but this was something new.
Early days
Although ‘Penmaenbach’ is a small layout, I wanted to capture the character of the scenery, stonework and structures of the North Wales main line. I’ve enjoyed the research process, including nostalgically re-watching the Railfreight Today DVD series, reading numerous books and reviewing my photographs from the 1980s. There is a wealth of reference material available about the Railfreight era, including the works of David Larkin, Simon Bendall, Michael Rhodes and Paul Shannon. The structures and scenery on Geoff Kent’s ‘Black Lion Crossing’ layout were also much admired during my research activities.
