IN the beginning, there was an oval on the carpet. Then I had the classic 8x4 double loop with some twiddly bits, which was never finished. After that, I progressed to a layout along two walls of the room, it was supposed to be a shelf layout but the baseboards expanded during the building processes and a loop with impossibly tight curves appeared. It to was never finished and became essentially a huge, messy building site.

I was 15 by this time, and I discovered girls. (When I say girls, I mean of course, underwear catalogues).

I did learn a lot about me and model railways though, in terms of what I like and what I can live without. I find 1900 - 1960 freight interesting, I can live without passenger services. I'm only interested in having diesel locos. I like roundy roundy layouts, but I don't like the idea of a layout taking over the room. Ironically, ever since I moved out from my parents' house and therefore could fill a room with track, I haven't wanted to. I also couldn't live with the mess that my old layouts created these days.

So, I have conceived an inglenook in a cabinet. Small enough to finish, compact enough not to take over a room, a glass front to keep out the dust which plagued my early models.... and operational interest. Following shunting sequences on cards is ideal for me as my attention span is to short to follow a timetabled operation schedule. Oh look, a butterfly.

I've had this idea for a couple of years now. In January this year I moved to Sweden (for the second time) and as I'm established here with a good job now, and winter is approaching, this seems to be the ideal time to start fiddling around with it.

I'm going to use PECO code 75 track, as I've never had any before and I like the idea of lower profile rails. None of the stock I plan to run should have any problem with it, as was not the case 15 years ago when I last played trains. Only 3 points (only two strictly necessary, but I will have three, to add the poor excuse for a mainline connection, so I can be extravagant and use Tortoise motors. I've ordered a Gaugemaster panel mount controller with brake simulation. It's not DCC of course, which I think is probably overkill for an inglenook anyway, but it's incredibly sophisticated for me considering my last controller was a Hornby knob-on-a-box affair. Mmmm. Brake simulation... DC control will also allow me to run my Bachmann 04 shunter, one of the few remaining models from my early layouts, and a favourite of mine. It's old, but it runs (ran) very well at slow speeds and hasn't aged too badly looks wise. Helpfully, this model is in storage in England and won't be coming to Sweden until I ship all of my worldly possessions over next autumn, so in the mean time I'll be acquiring a Bachmann 08 in BR blue. Couplings will be Kadee knuckle magnetty thingies; an uncoupling mangnet at the entrance of all three sidings should eliminate the "hand of god"

I've been buying rolling stock online, and I am impressed at how far it has come in the last 15 years. Bachmann stock was always good in my opinion (remember, my first experiences were with 1990s Hornby) and I have acquired some stuff by Dapol, which is a totally new company to me. The boxes are flimsy and useless, but fortunately the contents more than make up for it.

I'm going into town tomorrow afternoon after work to see if I can find some flexitrack in the local Swedish model shop, as the length means that it is very expensive to have sent from England. As it's the same track for both OO and HO, I think I might well be successful. Then I plan to pin it down to the board and experiment with siding lengths etc.

The rolling stock, as you may have noticed, is eclectic, to put it nicely, and certainly doesn't fit in with the BR blue era. That's becasue a) it's my layout and I'll do what I like with it, B) it's a model of storage sidings of a preserved railway (I'm rather proud of myself for coming up with that one!) and c) these wagons with a maximum of a 90mm buffer to buffer length means that I can keep the layout size down whilst still using the classic 5 3 3 setup. Of course, an inglenook shunting puzzle works best with clearly different colours and types of wagon.