Been a bit quiet of late. The loft is ready. I have been assembling small shelving units to go under the baseboards and have moved all the railway "stuff" up from the garage into the loft. Still need to get a workbench and something to sit on up there. Baseboards are on order from Elite Baseboards whom I met at the Bristol show a few weeks ago. Installation is scheduled for late June/early July.

I made reasonable progress on the model of Newport Engine shed but got to the point where the accumulation of small errors of measurement meant that the top level of the roof was just not working so I scrapped it and started again. Windows and doors thankfully were salvaged, however.

The layout plan has evolved. Now the space can be accurately measured and all the obstacles like the hatch and the purlin struts accurately located it became apparent that I was trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot. So I went back to an earlier idea which is that Medina wharf would be represented by hidden sidings on a continuous run. Coal trains heading anti-clockwise towards Ryde or Sandown will travel loaded. They will therefore represent coal being delivered when they leave Newport and coal arriving from Medina Wharf when they arrive at Newport. Clockwise trains will run empty, representing empties from other Island locations when they arrive at Newport and empties to Medina when they leave Newport. One road will be kept for continuous running of anything for fun and running in turns.

Chris