Okay, so this is the first (and knowing me) possibly the only entry in this blog!

So why am I beginning it in the first place? You may well ask.

Well, I plan to use it as a tool to keep myself on track at the start of what will, at 67, probably be the last big project. I have spent the last 30+ years working at American O scale... The first layout had to be abandoned due to a house move while the second one (a mix of standard gauge and On30) was too grandiose to get anywhere with - I'd bitten off more than I could chew and the layout had become moribund. I have a 20' by 8' shed which is to small for American O gauge but is just right for British OO. Sure, I know that any available space is, by definition, too small for the planned layout! Stands to reason!

​So why should the next layout be any different from the string of unfinished layouts that I have previously started? Simple. I'm tackling it as a modular project. I've already built the first baseboard - 4' x 1' - I'm beginning small! The next stage is to dismantle the old layout and dispose of the large accumulation of rolling stock... Shouldn't take too long... Famous last words, no doubt.

Okay, so where am I going? What's the new effort going to entail? Well I've always had a great admiration for the LNWR and the GWR plus a degree of contempt for the MR so I needed a location where the three of them rubbed along together and grudgingly co-operated. Well although I have lived in Cornwall since 1984, I am a Blackcountryman born and bred, so I had the ideal location. The era? Having been a soldier and having an interest in military history, the Great War sprung readily to mind, so why not? It is Pre-grouping, so is pre the slow decline of the British railway network which began in 1923 and has the benefit of extra wartime workings.

So here we go with "THE LAST GREAT PROJECT"... Coming soon: Planning.