It all started approximately 12 months ago, when our 33 year old central heating system was finally condemned by the Corgi gas fitter who serviced it,- unable to get the parts!

So we spent a small fortune on an all singing, all dancing, new 'government approved' pressurized system - and out went the water tank in the loft, we were left with a large partly boarded and well lit loft, access via a built in loft-ladder and with very little in it, except two flush pannelled wood doors...

It was at this point that the seeds for the idea of "Sproston" were born.

The layout is an almost exact copy of the terminus in C.J Freezers plan s31, in that famous book "60 plans for small railways, ( I have the 1971 edition, in very thumbed and dog-eared condition )

The original design was for a 7 ftx 5ft garden shed, with a complex three level continous run/ fiddle yard plan, the operator being in the hole in the middle. This was simplified to a u shaped terminus-fiddle yard layout, on the aformentioned two doors ( screwed together with further edging strips to make a llight solid layout 6'6" x 5,0")

I have always wanted to build this layout - the tracks seem to flow in a very attractive and realistic manner, so,after "obtaining" some more scrap lengths of timber, and using the original supports for the old water tank, the basebord was constructed.

The layout is 00, conventional DC using Peco live frog points and code 100 rail.

The trackplan was reproduced using "Anyrail" software- it is free off the net, if you do not use more than 50 pieces of trackwork to construct the plan.

This was printed out at 1:1 and stuck onto the new board. Track was layed on thin 1/16th" cork to give a slight ballast shoulder, the points were wired up using 'seep' motors under the board inside apertures cut in the door panel. small miniature switches were mounted on a panel with the track layout fixed on the top. The layout has cab control - a second handheld controller is provided for the fiddle yard.

The track is ballasted in time honoured fashion with oo ballast applied dry and carefully coaxed into position! Then well diluted pva glue with a drop of washing up liquid to relieve the surface tension was applied using a small syringe- this stage seemed to take forever...

Next the trackwork was carefully airbrused with diluted Humbol matt 113 rust.

The platform/loading dock is Metcalfe, carefully cut to shape, using a 60ft coach for conducting clearance tests, and with much extra card reinforcement added. TBC.