Its been a rather long time since I have touched any modelling, Not since Scaleforum in fact. The move to my own place coupled with a few other bits has just left no time for it.

However I have to move away from home for the next few months (6 months working in Broughton and driving back to Bristol at the weekends) The whole arrangement has left me rather cross, but on the plus side assuming I manage to find somewhere suitable to live it is going to mean I have more modelling time.

The thought of more modelling has been resting on my mind for the past week, needless to say the first effect has been spending more time on forums...

Unfortunately lack of funds prevents any meaningful construction on my planned new project, as it really needs to have some track laying before I can start making progress. The cost of buying all the trackwork just makes it untenable at the moment, given the extra expense of commuting back to Bristol coupled with increased saving meaning there is just not enough free funds to cover it. That said, the project is very much still going to be ongoing where ever possible.

The funds situation has also made me seriously re-evaluate my stock levels, everything that is not suitable for Blackcombe or the new layout will be sold over the summer!

Speaking of Blackcombe, this has been the focus of my thinking over the past few working days.

Over the past year I have thought a couple of times about rebuilding the layout and trying to fix some of its (many) problems. To that end I have started coming up with a new plan based around it.

There are two main options, Start again reusing as much of the layout as possible on new baseboards, or try to fix what is there insitue

My current thinking is to try and fix it and take things from there, needless to say should the main problem (track reliability) prove impossible to get to a satisfactory standard I will have to rethink things, though I suspect should that happen the new project would take priority for funding.

The above diagram gives a breakdown of some ideas,

The first thing to resolve is fitting a proper set of alignment dowels to resolve the alignment issues, followed by sorting out the trackwork in the yard, in particular I would like to try and fit a B7 point as the yard entrance in the place of the current A6. This is the most important factor as without sorting the running there really is no point in doing the rest

Fiddleyards, it needs a new fiddleyard on the right hand side (which hopefully can be shared with the other planned layout), the existing left hand fiddleyard will be scrapped.

The mainline will be removed covered with an enlarged bank. the other major modification is removing the branchline, and converting it into disused track and a headshunt. The idea being that the original branch has been closed past the clay works, wagons will then be taken into the works by an 060 (thinking an etched sentinal kit is something ive always wanted a crack at)

Another major modification is with the bridge, the current structure I was quite pleased with the design however its just not west country enough. This will be ripped out (with the spans reused on the new layout). It will probably be replaced with a devon stone structure on the RH side as a scenic extension/part of fiddleyard.

The final major area of work is a general improvement to the detailing, along with a backdating of all details to 1980s condition.

The big problem, while I plan to move the baseboards to Bristol. I wont have much time at weekends to work on it, (though that might improve a tad once May's exams are out the way.) Also not too sure how my girlfriends cats are going to take to the layout once they move in in September...

Still, it feels good to be thinking about modelling again.