(please excuse the shadows on the drawings my scanner is playing silly beggars and it's too much fuss to set up my copy camera arrangement at the moment as the lights are in use on Wingetts recycling ready for it's forthcoming exhibition)

As I started to sketch out my "visions" I began to realise what was drawing me to the plan.

It's that arrangement of buildings. Perfect for a small layout, obstructing your view and forcing your eyes to move around as you follow the train in the scene thus making the layout seem large than it is.

Then for some reason I started thinking about the Cromford and High Peak railway. It started to "speak" to me though the drawings (Oh this making me sound really wierd isn't it? Ian Holmes the Model Railway clairvoyant...) All those atmospheric photographs of the stone buildings. Then I started thinking snow and Ian Everetts "Royston Vasey" layout... Then I needed to go and lay down in a dark room for a while.

So what we have in my mind for a layout right now is a small, snowbound goods yard somewhere on a fictitious line somewhere in the peak district.

That's a long way from the West Somerset Mineral Railway....