MMRS's exhibition looks to have been a glowing success. However for Margaret and me, and our ability to help the cause, it did raise problems.

Both octogenarians, abilities and availability have a tendency to vary and the tea room, normally supplied and run by our ladies, was not allowed by the hall's management; therefore no job for Margaret! The space allocated for the demonstration stand was about half that of normal so it was not easy for her to sit with me and join in the demo.

This caused the two of us to do some fairly serious thinking about future years. These thoughts were also driven by my consideration that we should put more effort into grabbing the interest of those 'older' children who, once viewing Thomas the Tank Engine with much glee, now thought such trains to be babyish and below their own older years.

I'd also argued with members that we should offer more interaction with the public and there should be at least one layout at our show that the public were allowed to operate rather than simply admire, and to this end I was considering a shunting puzzle layout.

One of the very first, if not the actual first, of such layouts to be devised was thought-up in the early 1950s by a long-time Manchester MRS member, Alan Wright. Alan died in 2005 but left us with this legacy of a shunting puzzle which by 1979 had been developed into an exhibition layout called 'Inglenook Sidings' and this puzzle layout appeared at our exhibition in December 1979.

Out of all these musings of Margaret & I came the decision that we would together build a layout small enough to fit easily on our dining room table so as to be worked on in the comfort of a centrally heated room during winter months. It must be simple ready to run locos and stock, with the scenery essentially comprised of easily built, easily sourced, card building kits. Not only must it be small, but also light, easily carried, and self-contained. Operation from the front allowing one of us to supervise operation by the public. Such operation could be driven by the puzzle, or for younger people, by our direction.

This blog originally started as a description of my building a super-light-weight, EM layout, but little has been said about this recently, and it looks as though that trend will continue because Father Christmas delivered an N Gauge Train Set, (?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) not to me but to Margaret, and that is the basis of this new venture for the staff of Honley Tank.

An N gauge copy of 'Inglenook', this layout will be about 2' long by 1' wide and will comprise RTR locos & stock, a back-scene of Metcalf kits and a small wood to one corner. The wood was Margaret's idea' it will be the only scratch-built part and it allows us to name the layout after a hamlet less the a mile from our home, - 'Wood Nook'.

Work has started, so perhaps some pics next time.

Dave