With everything now in one place (France) it was time to start to build a layout. The first few days saw me refurbishing two old IKEA bookshelves so that the space they were occupying could now be put to a new use (the old use was important as one of the bookcases holds my railway library).

The apartment has textured walls and tiled floors and, being new, has corners that are close to 90º and floors that are close to level. This does help a lot. My first of two modules already built are light but strong with no apparent flexing and no tendency to warp. Being light it does not require heavyweight fixings and my plan is to use Molly bolt hooks along the back and simple posts along (or some way back from) the front.

So here is the first module in place, at the right hand end of a wall that gives me around 4 meters run to play with:

The wall attachment design by Molly works well (a bracket is sitting on the module, left front) and at the moment the "legs" are held by g-clamps.

With this in place (and subsequently the second module as well) I started to lay track. I had already cut out the major scenic spaces (see earlier posts) and had laid some 2mm thick card as track bed for the station release crossover.

So I then took each of the sections of track and soldered drop wires at convenient positions. For the switches/points/turnouts I also added the frog drop wire. I then drilled holes for the drop wires and threaded them through:

I also remembered to drill out the hole of the Tortoise drive under the tie bar.

Three track sections later:

The track sections are glued down with Copydex rubber cement.

There are no rail joiners at the moment (I plan to add Brassmasters fishplates later).

Next, the siding beyond the goods shed needed its 2mm thick card track bed. After glueing it down I looked around for some weights. Living over a wine cooperative shop has its benefits!

Edit to correct typographic error