My initial euphoria at finally getting some track down and running some trains soon turned to despair when I quickly discovered that the boards built last year were badly warped. These had got wet when the shed leaked but I thought I'd managed to save them. The problem is that they are now covered in very small micro-hillocks - almost impossible to notice until you lay track on them. Okay, so this is a cruel close-up and exaggerates the problem but nevertheless, this just won't do. Oh no.

So, back to the drawing board. I took the opportunity to review the track plan and signalling requirements past the gurus on RMweb and a couple of minor tweaks resulted which were committed to paper. I initially wanted to have the boards potentially relocatable but since this is now only a remotely possible requirement I whipped the lot out and replaced them with an L-beam structure covered in chipboard - for time, strength and cost. The boards have been sealed with a mixture of PVA and wood stain. Track laying has started again and I have now begun the dropped landscape area at the front of the layout. Built from cut-up parts of the scrapped boards (waste not, want not) this will become a coal yard with coal drops at one end, with a road rising up the side of an embankment to the goods yard at the other end.