This week has been another busy week as my return to work saw the date of our show confirmed and a start made on booking layouts and exhibits for the event.

The show

The date has been confirmed as Saturday 10th November. A big thank you to those people who have got back to me already. So far I have confirmed 5 layouts for the show and reckon I have at least another 5 or 6 layouts as possibles as well as a couple of trade stands confirmed and a couple of other exhibits. Things are beginning to take shape and it is nice to see the show plan beginning to fill up. I have even gained permission to use a couple of other rooms in the school so I do have some more space available to me.

The layout

As mentioned previously, I have committed to building a layout for the show. This may be a big ask and things have moved rather slowly this week. "Skaleby West" will be a small 4 ft x 1 ft layout featuring a small single platform station, passing / run-round loop and a small goods facility.

I showed a picture of the track plan in my last entry. I have now tested this, briefly, and things worked ok. Today I have laid the cork base for the track work. My home layout, Skaleby, uses the gaugemaster ballested foam underlay - but Skaleby West will be hand ballested. This will be my first attempt at this. I also plan to install point motors on this new layout, something which Skaleby also does not have.

The next task will be to install the extension pieces under the baseboard in order to lift the baseboards to allow the point motors to be installed underneath. The back board will then be fitted before I turn my attention to permenant track laying and the installation of point motors.

One small bit of luck is the offer from my father to take on the woodwork. As someone who is a bit of a DIY "duffer" this will be most helpful.