Tell you what this years has absolutely flown, mainly because the missus & our 4 soon to be 5 year old little lad have moved up to Harrogate. Modelling time at the moment is vertually non existant except to run trains around the layout up at my dads and trying to ignore the growing pile of 'broken things' (arnt little people brilliant at helping things fall apart!)

Anyway, as its his birthday on the 23rd and xmas only 2days behind that, i hatched a plan to build him his own railway that would go on the dining room table, after a bit of planning and a false start sourcing some wood, i bit the bullet & went to B&Q. Only realising i had 6 weeks from start to finish! The idea is to keep it as a surprise & so far its working, he has no idea what im building and have taken advantage of his absence this weekend to work on it in the house as opposed to freezing my backside off in the garage, Anyway heres some pics of the progress so far, its not much but for a 5 year old i think hell be bouncing off the walls when he sees it at xmas!

So it all started one Sunday with a trip to B&Q, there was 20% off sheet wood so 2 sheets of 6x2 6mm ply was purcased with a pack of strip wood. I didnt really have a plan as such so i just started cutting wood & went with the flow but it came together pretty well. The little 1 thinks im building some kind of door!

So all i basically did was knock up a frame with the strip wood, some of which more than resembled a banana, and then screwed & glued the play to to the top, nothing earth shatteringly complex. The main idea to make it as easy to lift & move about as feasable. The 2 boards are clamped together with some roofing bolts & wing nuts through an extra baton, simple & effective.

Once i got the 2 made up after a week of working in sub zero temparatures it was time sort the track plan & figure out how much track & points were needed. The track plan is a folded figure of 8 which to me gives lots of potential to 'watch the trains go by' and also will be simple enough for a 5 year old (hopefully) So the track was ordered from Hattons and duly turned for the second week of the build. Work & the weather got in the way so track laying was pretty slow to begin with

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Id stockpiled a load of superquick kits from the Leeds Grammar exhibition to make up for the layout so on a night after the little had gone to bed a superquick production line started up

id forgotten just how much i enjoyed buidling them up & actually are pretty good value for money i reckon as well and a nice excuse for a laphroig!

Now i had the buildings made up the shed roads & the platform roads were put in on the boards & the track sprayed in railmatch dark rust, that was friday so with the missus off to see her mum for the weekend it was nice to be able to bring the layout in for a bit of a play

After wiring it up properly & devising a way to connect both boards with some 9v battery clips from the wakefield show, ballasting began in earnest. After what seemed lime an interminable amount of time the ballast was on & the glue applied it was now time to watch a bit of motd and watch it dry.

Over night the glue had nearly dried, a few areas were still a bit squidgy so today it was time to gte some greenery on. as im on a bit of a budget & deadline i bought a grass mat from teh Wakefield show last week. Iv never used 1 before but im quite pleased with the results iv got, only quible is its a bit bright but hey ho 5 year olds wont be that picky....surely?

Heres a pic of how the layout looks now, 2 weekends to go but theres still a lot to do but i think its come along pretty well in such a short time, very nice to see a train trundling round this aft. Just waiting for the missus to let me know when shes coming home & its demoted to the garage again, just hope the glue will dry clear as its a bit cold out there!

Cant wait to see his face when he comes down to see this sat on the table when we get back after christmas at the in laws, doubt ill get a play though!

Cheers for looking, might have some more update hoefully by the end of the week

James