It had started as a sector era Southern Region layout. Inspired by Weymouth, I'd got as far as having laid the track and put platforms in. I was plugging away at building a small fleet of EMUs, and ordered myself some Peco insulator chairs and conductor rail from my local model shop.

I think it was two months into the wait for the chairs that something clicked in my mind. Tidying my playroom railway room I was sorting through my German outline models, seperating the mid 1980s (Epoch IV) models from the late 1990s ones (Epoch V), the realisation hit that I had enough of an Epoch IV collection to operate a layout. "Blow it" I thought, and I think I even said words to that effect out loud. For some reason I'd pinned the track down on the layout (I normally glue it), and with the aid of some wire cutters I was soon pulling them out. The copperclad sleepers I used at the baseboard join needed a little chisel work, but it wasn't many minutes before I had myself a new blank canvas. Well, plywood top. 8' x 1' of it.

After a little playing with the track (Piko A Track, code 100 but with a narrow rail profile), I found a nice plan. Basically a terminus with a run round and two sidings and a small headshunt. One siding was turned into a bay platform, and the other was just loooooooong. Throwing caution to the wind, I drilled a few holes for the point actuating rods, and secured the track. I even reused most of the original pins- good sturdy Hornby ones!

Deciding to get on with things before disillusionment set in (and also making use of some fine weather- I like doing messy jobs outside), I cut some platforms out of 9mm MDF, and cracked straight on with ballasting. I'd never used Scenic Textures ballast before, and I doubt I will again- it smells like cat litter and even with a very thorough wetting still clumped when dilute PVA was applied. Once this had set enough, I made some edging stones for the platform from card- card from Tillig flexi track boxes. As an experiment I tried using fine ballast as a platform surface. It clumped. Once it dried, I chiselled it off and tried a similar technique to applying grass. I painted PVA onto the platform, then sprinkled the ballast on. Success! A smoother surface.

I haven't done much scratchbuilding before, so I decided to have a shot with the station building. Not that it's rocket science, I'm just a bit ham fisted at times. So far it looks OK, but I now need to add details such as guttering, which leaves plenty of scope to make a farce of matters.

Anyway, here's the early stages out in the garden...

There's a representative sample of stock there, showing the layout at its busiest. A 212 works push-pull with Silberlings on a peak time service, while the off-peak provision of a BR798 Schienenbus with 998 trailer is tucked in the bay. A 218 is overprovision for the pick up freight, normally a 360 or similar would handle this.

I made the backscenes such that the layout can box up for transport, which will be completed with the addition of plywood ends screwing on into T nuts in the baseboard ends. Hopefully this will be secure for lugging around.

And that was the beginnings. Having got this far, I promptly b***ered off on holiday for a month, and came back to find a new, shiny RMWeb...