After some playing around with the shelf layout, the track plan has evolved somewhat, following the purchase of a Metcalfe brewery kit to add some operating interest. At present, the projected layout is looking somewhat like this:

However, the Tomix Mini Fine Rail track system (primarily intended for trams) has come to my attention, and using it, it should be possible to fit an oval onto my 1-foot-wide shelf. I'm not sure quite how well it would work, but I have done some rudimentary experiments with some (protesting!) 009 flexitrack I had lying around, bending it to approximately 140mm radius (the second(!) smallest radius Tomix offer), and my Farish 04 shunter will just about grind through it with a short-wheelbase 4-wheeler. Bearing in mind that 009 flexitrack has a habit of kinking and therefore forming straight sections linked by tighter curves than the nominal radius, I bit the bullet and ordered enough Tomix track from a well-known auction site to try out an oval. If it works, the plan is to build a roundy-roundy slightly more train-set styled layout, while possibly retaining the BLT. However, I would be gaining a continuous run at the expense of severely limiting what stock I can run; while my 04 will negotiate 140mm radius (scaling up to 68 feet radius (1.03 chains!) or just under 21m) my steam-outline pannier will not. Any ideas of seriously-short-wheelbase locos would be gratefully received!

If the 140mm radius experiment works out, the basic layout plan is something along these lines (all curves and points 140mm radius unless otherwise shown, and I am seriously rethinking that 103mm rad siding!:

Any thoughts or comments?