Ok, it's a strange way to go about building a model railway. Starting the "scenery" before building the baseboard that will go underneath it.

Probably need to explain that.

"Roding Reach" will be a change of gauge for me, coming down from 00 to N. And i wanted to see if I could cope with the fiddly nature (or what I presumed would be be fiddly) before getting too stuck in.

The best way seemed to be to make a short section that included track, points, viaduct walls.

Having done that and found that it was a "goer" I decided to take it a bit further and build a layout out of this first section.

So, having built a major part of of the layout it is time to start the planning.

Last night saw me bending bits of spare flexitrack to see how to turn the track at each end and see "what was left" for a traverser at the rear of the layout.

Not much was the answer if I simply curved the track round in a simple oval.

One thought I did have was to add a second scenic section, lengthening the layout. But this would pretty much fill the length of the lounge. And I'm fairly certain that would really reduce the number of times the layout comes out of storage for a play session.

Luckily "the wife" came up with an answer. Or as it was handed down with the authority normally reserved for High Court judges, we better call it "THE Answer".

"Why don't you make the two return loops at either end into scenic sections. You'd get a longer running track and not need a 2nd scenic section to make a longer layout."

So, off to find some lining paper and start drawing the rest of the layout 1:1.