This is a ground level 32mm gauge line and is as level as I could get it. Peco flat-bottom track is used on the circuit with Tenmille bullhead track laid from the Triangle into the Train Shed. 

Work started on constructing this garden railway, as far as I can remember, way back in 1989. As it is built at ground level we started at the highest point in the garden and gradually worked our way with the earthworks towards the lowest point whilst keeping the track level. The fall of the ground is only about one foot over a distance of twenty feet. Construction takes the form of  ½” thick by 4” wide marine ply boards screwed to blocks of 4”x2” wood which are embedded into concrete. All timber is well creosoted before use and receives an annual dose of a creosote and old engine oil mix.   

Curves are 6’ radius where possible and the marine ply at these points are only 2’ long in order to get around the curve. A strong base is the result and it is easy to pin the track to the marine ply. The disadvantage of using ply is that if not treated annually with the mix then it does tend to de-laminate.  

So in 1989 a 100’ long circuit, with a passing loop, was completed around the lawn and running commenced. Two years later the line was extended via a triangle by another 40’ to a newly built train shed where undercover steaming-up facilities were provided.

Halfway along this line is another steaming-up facility with a sunken standing area which was completed in 2004 and which the older members of the group find much more to their liking as they don’t have to bend down while servicing their engines. 

As the line is a Tramway it is not governed by any Railway Act. Any number of locomotives can operate at the same time without the encumbrances of signalling and block working, although being single track it does help if all the trains run in the same direction around the circuit ! 

Being at ground level the intention has been to try and blend the line into the landscape using plants where possible and built structures elsewhere. There is a short tunnel at one point, for no obvious reason other than I happened to have a length of concrete pipe to hand. This presents no clearance problems to normal sized stock but of course there is always someone who has something bigger than everyone else!  There is an under bridge but this is situated at the lowest part of the garden and allows excess rainwater from the lawn to run away underneath and so is there for a reason. One straight run of track 20 feet long had a very realistic scale dry stone wall made of real slate down one side, but due to lack of maintenance this has largely disintegrated. Over time the whole railway has now matured to give a passable impression of a line passed its heyday and on its last legs, which was not what I had envisaged when I first started out building the thing!

Cwmtudu translates from Welsh as the Valley of the Black House. A valley there certainly is at the bottom of the garden but as for the black house, this seems to have disappeared over the years probably slipping down the bank into the stream at the bottom of the valley, so far the Tramway has managed not to follow suit.