Mawgan Porth is an EM gauge layout with a strong LSWR flavour, set on the North Cornish coast. It was built on baseboards inherited from the club’s late treasurer, Maurice Graves, and runs stock inherited from Maurice and Roger Plumley. The plan is based on Bude, adjusted to fit the harbour branch onto the boards, which are small enough to travel in one car.
The pointwork is scratch-built on copper-clad sleepers, the plain track is SMP, and the points are worked by Tortoise motors. The ballast was fixed with a method new to us: liquid floor polish dripped onto the loose ballast, which sets solid.
Three controllers run the main line, the yard and the loco and harbour roads. Sections switch automatically with the routes set, and a coloured LED shows which controller has each section. Cornish harbourside buildings sit in front of a removable backscene that hides the fiddle yard cassettes. Freight stock uses three-link couplings, so the scenery is designed to leave easy access for the shunting pole.
