Fase one of the project was building the Hatch station section together with a couple of fiddle yards at each end. I decided to build the layout on four baseboards so as to be portable. (during fase2 it might need to move around the room). I wanted to try an open frame section hence the track and road running down to the fiddle yard at the right hand end. This yard is about 10 cm lower than the rest of the layout, as I want to try making an incline. The plan can be seen here

The boys started construction of the baseboards using 2" by1" framing and 9mm plywood for the top. MISTAKE Nr1 The boards are far too heavy and even the 2" deep frame is not enough to hide or protect the DCC point motors that are now mounted under the frames

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The track plan was printed out full size on many sheets of A3 paper. I have used Tillig Elite track as I love the look of its points. The flexible track is VERY flexible and difficult to lay in a straight line it is also hard to keep the sleepers perpendicular to the rails, But I do not regret the choice.

I was already concerned by the tendency of the baseboards to act as loudspeakers so I decided to use closed cell foam as the track bed, and bought a large pack designed to be used under solid wood flooring. To help hide it the green colour was painted earth brown before being glued with Copydex to the plywood. The chamfers to the foam were cut by a Stanley knife held at an angle

After this track was glued in place with Copydex and test runs with hand pushed wagons started. This uncovered MISTAKE NR2. The fishplates for tillig track fit very tightly (which is good for electrical conductivity). But if you do not look out when joining track to points, you can by mistake push the rails that form the Vee in enough to muck up the clearance and wheels no longer run through the Vee. Until I realised what was happening I used to use a slitting disk to open up the Vee again, but now I know that the way to stop this happening is to use a pair of thin nosed pliers to hold the rails in place when sliding fishplates on to the points.

With the track in place in the station section across the baseboard joins I then made MISTAKE Nr3. I never did get round to cutting the tracks where the crossed the baseboard joins So now those two base boards are permanently joined together! This ‘decision’ was reinforced by the wiring also going across the joins not to mention the scenery and buildings. Not so good now that I want to move the layout for fase two!