While physical work on Steveley has been quite slow, the basics of the track plan have been coming together, along with the plan for the baseboard.

The setting on the north east coast in the 80s has provided a lot of material to work with, the primary basis is going to be the Whitby area. So a single branch line leading to a terminus station with 2 platforms was the starting point. Initially I was working on the idea of an island platform but I soon realised that it would limit my options in terms of the locomotive hauled rakes I could use. Due to space constraints I could only have 2 lines in the station area and so wouldn't have enough space for a runaround loop to release the loco. This would mean I would have to put a loco at each end of the rake to prevent a situation of the coaches being pushed rather than pulled.

The obvious solution was to switch to using a bay platform instead and incorporate the runaround loop into the platform area. That way the same amount of space was used as the island platform design near enough. It would also mean that without increasing the platform length I could effectively add in another coach to the loco hauled relief services as I now had a way to release a single loco from the rake and save the cost of another loco. It took a little bit of trial and error with the coaching stock I've already collected to work out the ideal size but I think I've got there now.

Recently I spent a few hours playing around with my pair of BR mk1 coaches and some of the Peco settrack I've got. While I know the settrack may not be great from an accuracy point of view, cost and size wise it's ideal. And with a little bit of work with my scalpel and some weathering and suitable ballasting it should be possible to make it look good.

In terms of the baseboards I'm limited to what can fit under the bed when the layout isn't being run so they can't be too deep. But at the same time I wanted the amount of noise from the trains running over the board to be kept as low as possible. Thanks to a number of recent deliveries, primarily of vivariums for the pair of geckos, I've got a fair amount of polystyrene packing sheets. These should make a nice base, while allowing the wiring to be hidden beneath the track and building up the track and platform level to allow the water level in the quay area to be on the actual baseboard. I'm hoping to get away with a single baseboard for the scenic section with maybe a another smaller one for the fiddle yard.

While there probably won't be much more in terms of physical work this year the track and building plans will continue over the Christmas period along with the signage.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!