As promised, I've been playing with various plans for a week or so now.

This is the latest and, hopefully, final iteration of the smaller 6' Plan.

This is the basic version - I've printed out the plan a few times and have been drawing the structures etc on to get the best fit.

Starting from the right hand side, the branch curves in, crossing to the left hand side of the board and then heading offstage over a level crossing. The track below this is the headshunt for the goods yard. Heading to the left, we run through two sets of points. The first leads off to the engine shed - this helps to hide the stage exit. Continuing to the second set of points, a 3-way, the right hand exit leading to the platform road, whilst the road straight ahead heads past the goods shed, continuing over the crossing where it joins back.up with the single line to the coast and the shingle loading. The left is a short siding serving coal pens.

Three points make it a fairly simple affair, with the oft-used trick of the runaround being completed 'off-stage' to save more space.

Passenger services run into the platform, the loco uncouples, crosses the lane and runs round using the goods shed road, runs into the headshunt then back onto.the train before leaving back the way it came. I've borrowed the 'running round in goods yard' idea from Iain Rice's excellent 'Witheridge' plan in the Finescale in small spaces' book.

General goods - much the same. What is effectivley a 'double ended' goods yard, albeit one where one end is off the modelled scene, makes life a little easier for shunting. Goods trains run into the platform, are reversed back into the headshunt, and the loco then hauls then into the goods shed road/loop. Loco decouples, crosses over the lane and then runs back through the platform and into the headshunt before taking off any coal wagons and moving them to the shorter siding via the headshunt.

Shingle from the coast is simply hauled into the platform road, the private shunter uncouples and runs back via the goods shed road and offstage.

By making the board smaller, I've obviously had to make some compromises, and with a desire to keep an open feel to the layout, the river crossing has had to go. I've also had to lose the bay/cattle dock to avoid an overly cramped look.

Any thoughts would be welcomed - for now I have an appointment with a sketchpad and some coloured pencils - to try and get some of the visual ideas I have in my head down on paper!