I suppose a reasonable place to start would be to decide on a rough loading gauge. Now I know it can be complex in theory. Real railways have to consider all sorts, overhang on curves, cant angle and so on. So I dug about and found a selection of mainly European loading gauges and did a bit of rough averaging. Hmm.

Having done that I made a realistic guess at the profile of stock to run in it.

That looks sensible to me, subject to change. Very simplified of course, but it will do for a start.

So, metre gauge track. I have had a look at various pics and documents. From that I conclude that a reasonable average would be represented by code 83 flat bottom rail held onto 1.5 m sleepers by spikes or a clamp arrangement.

At least I know the gauge. 20mm. So I turned a couple of roller gauges from the pins of a scrap 15 A plug. Shiny …..

I don’t have any code 83 fb , but I do have some very tatty code 75 bh lifted in haste from Kelvinbridge 1 . Nor do I have any nicely cut 30 mm long sleepers. I do have a bag of scrap veroboard offcuts from many electronics projects over the years. I found a bit of slightly warped ply. Screwed a couple of bits of wood on, glued some bits of vero in place and and soldered rail to that.

That led me to think about wheels. Over the years I have accumulated many. Some were bundled in with kits  and ended up replaced with decent gibson or 5iL wheels. Time to use them up. So I knocked up a test bogie from scrap etch and some Jackson tender wheels.  Messing about and just playing with the way it ran led me to think that a back to back of 17.8 mm feels right. Not too much sideplay but with the ability to get round a 600 mmm curve without the flanges binding. An angle bracket and a bit of filing and I also have a b-b gauge.

Emboldened by that I threw down a bit more track to let me play with pointwork and flangeways. Still messing about a bit, but I think 1.2 mm will work ok. I even roughed out a simple crossing. The test bogie wanders through it despite its roughness.

It is all rather approximate, mainly about me getting a feel for it at the moment. Maybe have a think about stock next.