Have Templot, will plan track. Above all else I keep trying to remind myself that this is a first attempt and a trial effort to learn things, pick up skills and make mistakes. And so it needs to be small in scale and acheivable in time and resources. Luckily at the moment I don't have a cavernous loft/spare room/barn waiting to be filled with Venice-Simplon in gauge 1, so my kitchen table makes a handy size constraint onto which the whole thing should fit for construction and should the joyous day ever arrive, operation.

I printed out the templot plan, stuck it all together and tried a first mock up on the table. Here a some fuzzy shots of how it looked. Keen-eyed observers may notice that the "warehouse" designed to view-block the exit road has its origins in Duplo medieval castle pieces - I think there may be a fair few other lego mockups along the way...