Croeso i Bryn Nadolig. Pentref dychmygol o Ucheldiroedd Cymru ar fy nghynllun cul, lle mae'n Nadolig drwy'r flwyddn.

Or loosely translated from Welsh language into my very best Australian English... Welcome to Christmas Hill. A fictional Welsh Highlands village on my narrow gauge layout, where it is Christmas all year round.

Working with OO9 Scale, gives me the opportunity to enjoy constructing scenery and structures in 1:76 scale, while keeping to the confines of some 1st radius, or 228 mm curves. Something which is particularly appealing to an apartment based modeller such as myself.

Living Down Under in Australia, my inspiration for modelling narrow gauge steam has slowly been simmering ever since being invited to photograph behind the scenes at the Puffing Billy Railway near Melbourne, Australia. There's something about those tiny yet powerful narrow gauge locomotives that you just can't replicate, unless of course we're talking about a model railway.

In more recent years, Bachmann began producing some fine OO9 scale off-the-shelf models, and the more I reasearched where these locomotives ran and where, the more fascinated I became by the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highlands Railways. The heritage railway in the heart of Snowdonia, is the combination of two historic former slate railways, and being a tourist drawcard in the north of Wales, had an extensive website, gift shop and many readily available books for me to draw upon when modelling something from the other side of the world.

Fictitious as it may be, Bryn Nadolig is a welcome change of scenery for me after modelling in Australian outline for the best part of the last decade. A small village set somewhere along the line in the hills outside Porthmadog, it provides some continual running set amongst a Christmas theme. And who knows? With enough book sales, I may one day get to afford to visit and ride aboard the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highlands Railways. Until then... come along on my fictitious ride.