OK, so all change! I have finally worked out, one year after retiring, that I am actually retired! It took that long to sink in. Mind you I still do some programming for a company in the USA so I am not completely idle. So, what has this to do with the price of fish? It has caused me to reconsider that I was doing with my model railways and what I wanted to spend the next year or so doing. I have no great affinity for any British railway, having grown up in South London with a railway embankment down the end of the road that only ever had Southern electric mus on it. As noted in my profile, I have done mostly US outline since 10 years old. Hence, the supposedly LNER/BR railway I was building was poorly designed and didn't grab my imagination. I was also trying to put my new NG railway onto a 72" x 18" board and it wasn't going where I wanted it anyway. So the OO railway has come up and is being replaced with the NG layout. This means that I have 8' x 2'+ whatever to play with. I can now have the roundy roundy that I wanted as I do like to see trains run and with sound on the railway, this would enhance the effect enormously.
I have spent a lot of time over the last week trying to fit the previous plan into my round/roundy but finally decided to rip up all the track in the main station and relay it to a new design. One of the nice things about using foam board is how quickly you can reconfigure. I just slapped two new sheets of foam board over the station area and - bingo - I have a nice clean working area.
Here is what I plan to do - well actually, I am in the middle of doing it!
I am coming to the NG Conference on the Saturday so if you have anything to comment, collar me there. If you see a white haired, white bearded copy of Father Christmas or Papa Smurf, that's me. I hope to meet as many people as possible. Plus, I have a full pocket of cash so I am looking forward to it. See you there.
