I took the opportunity of the Christmas break to undertake some pretty major works on Fen End Pit. An evening of laser cutting produced replacement frames for the two centre baseboards, these frames were assembled and then the original MDF frames from the original layout were removed with various degrees of force! It was clear from the ease with which some of the original framing could be removed that this was a job which was somewhat overdue! The original boards had warped a fair bit too and took a bit of persuasion to be made to lie flat on the new frame.

The original baseboards were about 15 years old and you can see from this view that they had fairly minimal bracing. All the framing was of 6mm MDF and there were only two diagonals on the each baseboard. You can also see the original lemarco point motors and somewhat dubious wiring.

The replacement for the pit end was probably the most complex as it featured a complete new 'bottom' for the pit and a replacement for the original bolt-on 'guitar' board which formed the front of the layout. There were rather more 'manual adjustments' than I'd have liked (I screwed the drawing up in a couple of places) but the result feels pretty rigid and I've still got some diagonals to install.

The resulting boards are about 15cm longer than they were originally which gives an opportunity to add in a little extra scenery and straighten out a couple of places where track previously had nasty curves near baseboard joint. Most of the scenery consists of 'a bucket of sand' so hopefully not too difficult.

On this board I've also adjusted the framing to allow the original water feature to get lowered by 25mm. The water was really too close to the level of the track and sinking it should make things look better. I'm contemplating making a culvert under the track (little more than a 12" pipe) but adjusting the rear of the layout to include a ditch which flows into it.

The original hut on the pit end is probably going to stay though I tempted to try some real 16mm scale bricks to rebuild the base currently scribed rather poorly in DAS. I've still to cut the extra bit of baseboard top for this.

It is good to have got so much of the major works done in one go so that I have smaller projects which can be completed as time is available. It has been just over a year since Fen End Pit last went out and I'd not accepted any more bookings as I wasn't sure when/if it was going to get rebuilt. After this week I'm feeling as if real progress has been made and I'm looking forward to getting the layout back up to exhibition standard.

David