Well, it's been a couple of months since I last updated this blog. Christmas has come and gone and while there has been a fair amount progress and decisions made in some areas, others are less settled.

The good news first. The location of the layout has been settled. We have a small room in the house that has been cleared / and made ready.

Unfortunately the nature of the layout has changed. It's still a intermodal depot / dock with container ships and so on, by instead of a loop with hidden fiddle yard, the layout is now going to be a shelf type layout around the walls with the main dock / intermodal section deeper at 55cm

There will also be some form or removable section to complete the loop and allow continuous runs. The track plan has obviously had to be changed from that posted previously, the new plan has had many revisions to date, and while I'm happy with the two scenic sections (I think) I'm still trying to get the fiddle yard and removable section to work. I'll post some pictures of room, baseboards and track plan soon. Currently thinking of a 6 track traverser for a fiddle yard, I must be mad.

Work has continued on the container ship with the super structure / bridge area coming along. It's a slow job and I now find other jobs to do instead but it's getting there and I'll try and get a couple of photos up later this week.

Stock acquisition has continued, will the arrival of a Dapol Stobart 66, rake of Stobart / Tesco intermodals and other megafret and spine wagons. The intermodal fleet is large enough for now. A Dapol 66 in Bardon Aggregates has also appeared. Also arriving recently was a DCC DRS class 20 bought off ebay from another member of this parish.

The second scenic section is to have some form of cement / aggregate plant so the Bardon 66 will fit in nicely there. I scratch built a cement works for OO last year so looking forward to repeating process again in N. Will be looking out for some new stock ideas at Model Rail Scotland this weekend!

The DCC controller decision has been made. A NCE Powercab was purchased before Christmas. All four locos are now DCC chipped and so far so good on the small test track I put on the first baseboard I made.

Track decisions also made - a box of Peco N Streamline is sitting on my shelf awaiting the final track plan, still to decide on electrofrog or insulfrog for the points (opinions welcome on this one)

Will post some pictures later, perhaps someone can help with my fiddle yard design