| In the beginning there was The Plan. Originally, because of space, I intended an end-to-end layout, rather than a continuous loop. But somewhere I read that locos need to be run in, so the obvious solution for that is a loop. But I'm planning to disguise the loop - read on! |  |
 | The project is slightly constrained by space. There isn't enough! So the layout has to be about 5' by 2½' Also there's a problem about noise. Construction does sometimes involve using electric tools, and the noise insulation in these flats is almost non-existent. Also there is a certain amount of noise simply from running trains and operating points. So I want to be reasonably quiet. After the Plan there was a Table. In the bedroom! |
| To lessen the noise of construction and eventual running, I laid polystyrene ceiling tiles on the table as insulation. (Now you know why the plan has red grid lines!) I drew the plan on to the table with a red marker pen and then wished I hadn't, because ..... |  |
 | .....after The Plan came The Change. There has already been a fair bit of tweaking, of tearing up and re-laying, of plans torn up and discarded. In the end it's a case of "make it up as you go along" but with a vague idea of what I want. Now the red lines are more of a distraction than an aid. The latest version of The Plan on paper looks like this: |
| The idea now is to have a fiddle yard (for the non-technical, that's a storage area for rolling stock often out of sight of the main layout) at the top, and the whole top section to be tunnel. There are sidings on the right, maybe a (goods ?) station below, and factories off to the left. Sounds vague? Yup! At the end of February 2009, the track is finally laid. This is a photo version from above. It doesn't look much like the original design! However, now it's just a matter of wiring everything up, creating the hinged hillside at the top to hide the fiddle yard, and painting scenery. Oh yes, and getting some locos and wagons to run on the track! |  |
 | November! Well, the track was finally laid, and yet somehow it didn't feel right. It's taken until now to do anything about that, given the usual summer activities and absences. But yesterday a local model railway exhibition just managed to stimulate the imagination enough to make me sit down and reconsider the layout.
I realised that this railway had too much railway! It was just too "busy". So now there is a glimpse of a plan for whole layout, and I have ripped up the bottom right-hand corner completely. Here is the new plan. I'd better say "provisional plan" because change happenz (as the Zurich advert says!). |
| Well, change has happened. It still wasn't right, so I ripped some more, and relaid some more, and here's the result. The station (bottom right) has turned into what will be a train depot, and the top left area will become commercial and loading bays. I think! The small gaps are for isolating various parts of track to make multi-movements possible. Inspiration sometimes comes late! There's no need to make the tunnel hinged, just leave the back of it open. Only I will know that it's a hollow hillside. Simple! |  |
Now it's September 2010 and the whole layout is upside down! Literally! Now that the actual layout is finalised, all the track laid and all the points working and all the LEDs showing which sections of track are live....and all that, I couldn't bear the mess of wires underneath. When a problem arose, it was almost impossible to trace a wire in order to see where the fault lay, so I decided to rewire it completely. And there it sits, upside down on a card table with its legs in the air, undergoing major surgery. However, it is already a much neater wiring layout than before, but it's very time-consuming and finicky. I've had to make a new control board because the old version was just too small. |