In March last year I pretty much mothballed my main layout: Gerlos and started work on a much smaller layout instead just to practice some building techniques. The small layout being Linksueberdorf (LUD for short).

Over the last year the baseboard for Gerlos has just become a repository for junk that needs to be put away, so the weekend before the Bank Holiday, I cleared all the junk away again and gave the top of the baseboard a bit of a clean. The reasoning being that as I progress with LUD as practice layout, I should then try to build up Gerlos as I complete each phase.

Just before I mothballed Gerlos I had bought a piece of 3mm multiplex to form the upper level of the layout. I got as far as cutting out the area covered by the lower station, but no further. So this weekend, I got the board out again and marked out where the track will go. There is one short section that needs to be done using flex track, but the rest is all Roco Set Track.... This makes marking track laying easy!

Here you can see the marked out layout plan:

Now all I need is a helping hand to help me cut out the snake like track.The piece of Flex track you can see covers the section of Flex Track.

In the background all sorts of things have been going on, I have added a programming track as the Z21 has a separate programming track output. I'm also wiring in a switch to allow me to switch the track to main supply if I'm not programming a loco or using my old Roco booster to power the layout.

I've also been working on tunnel entrances, I'm using some TT tunnel entrances from Auhagen (they look right), and some Metcalfe brick paper. When you glue the paper onto the tunnel mouth it has a tendency to flare, so I've prepared some bits of wood to stop that:

I hade to some wood along the lower edge as well to keep it straight. Here you can see both tunnel mouths placed on LUD:

So progress on all fronts!