Over the last fortnight I've taken the plunge and done some fairly major reworking of the spring module. It used to be single track, but now it's double, which - given that there were already two running lines through the main summer module - means that there is now only a short stretch of single track anywhere on the layout. It's been a lot of messy work, and so the obvious question is - why? One answer is that I've always fancied seeing running of the bigger locomotive classes, such as Castles and Kings, and these always looked a little out of place on the old layout, even allowing for such things as the Kingswear branch. A second answer is that I wasn't quite happy with the sharp reverse curve of the original single track course, which worked fine for smaller engines but resulted in the larger classes looking a little ungainly as they negotiated the bends. Once this T9 crosses the brook, it has to swing to the right to gain the right route for exiting the module - a swerve which looked fine when I laid the track, but gradually came to annoy me.

But all of those turned out to be secondary considerations! The main one was a nagging drawback with the fiddleyard. As originally designed - and to be fair it's served me well enough for eight years - it consisted of six double-ended storage loops. Fine enough, but because of the way the turnouts were arranged, the loops got progressively shorter until the last two were just enough for a pannier and B-set, with even a three-car DMU being too long. Worse than that though, when I looked at the amount of room on the boards not taken up by track, I couldn't help feeling that the existing set of loops weren't a very efficient use of space.

The solution was to go double-track, breaking the loops into three up and three down tracks, meaning that - ultimately - they can all be long and make much better use of the available area. I thought long and hard about doing it, though, because I was quite satisfied with the scenery and reliability of the layout as it was, and I didn't want to undo a lot of good work. In the end, though, I got the itch to start doubling! The plan was to do the work in two phases, completing work on the spring module (including re-ballasting and attending to scenery) before doubling the winter module. The first job, to be able to work efficiently, was to dismantle the existing lighting rig and valence, so - since it hasn't been put back together yet - these shots are taken with just the normal room lighting.

So here's where we are:

Track is now doubled through the spring module, and the new alignment is a lot gentler on the reverse curves than the old one. It was actually a case of lifting and relaying all the track, as well as altering the angle and width of the crossing over the brook. By working carefully, I managed not to damage any of the foreground scenery, including the telegraph poles - but more on that later. The new brook crossing uses some of the old Wills parts but (for speed) I decided to use the exciting new Superquick papers!

Since I'd seemingly acquired a huge number of stone sheets from Beatties(!) this was the spur to tackle the occupation bridge at the end of the layout, as featured here:

Before, the single track just ducked out of the module through an exit concealed by trees, but being double now, the hole needed better concealment. Here's how the occupation bridge looks in-situ, providing a nice means of access for the field in the corner.

Following a suggestion by Job, I've used charcoals to add a little grime to the bridge and its adjoining retaining walls, but there's still more to be done. Things were going well at that point, but then I managed to drop a tiny blob of Copydex on the telegraph lines. Disaster! It gummed them together in nanoseconds and no amount of delicate persuasion has managed to get them de-gummed. Never mind, they'll just have to be done again, at least between two of the poles. In the meantime, I'm attempting to see what can be salvaged of the original backscene, which I'd also come to dislike in various places.

Lessons learned? With the old track, there were areas where it annoyed me that the C+L wasn't as flat as it could have been, with various dips and bumps. I vowed to do a better job this time, but all I've discovered is that it's bloody hard laying flat C+L! Being so naturally flexible, it's probably superb on a rigid baseboard surface, but as soon as you have some inherent give in the system - such as when using any kind of soft underlay - it's all too easy to end up with exactly the same dips and bumps you were trying hard to avoid! At least I've tried to minimise them this time. In this regard, Peco's promised bullhead track would have been easier to work with, I suspect.

Anyway, ballasting's next...what larks!

Cheers and thanks for reading.