The longer standing readers of British Railway Modelling may remember a series of supplements that were attached to the September to December 1998 issues of the magazine entitled Building a Model Railway in which members of Wolverhampton MRC described the construction of a small EM gauge layout. That layout has evolved into 'Merthyr Riverside', and this is finally nearing completion.
When I first joined Wolverhampton MRC, I was surprised and a little disappointed to find that the main modelling interest of the club lay in the Eastern Region during British Railways’ modernisation period in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If I wanted to join in, I’d have to adapt and so I started building suitable models, choosing freight stock as there seemed to be a shortage in that area. I’m still waiting for a suitable GWR main line to be built and I haven’t lost all hope yet.
Over time, my area of GWR interest moved around 70 miles eastwards, to the railways in the coal-producing valleys heading north from Cardiff. However, I chose to base my model on the small and almost perpetually poverty-stricken Brecon and Merthyr Tydfil Railway (B&MR), rather than one of the bigger players in the valleys like the Taff Vale (TVR), Rhymney (RR) and Barry (BR) railways. An approach from BRM to build and describe the construction of a small EM gauge layout offered an opportunity
