The last week has been something of a landmark for both the show and the layout as things move forward once more!

The first train has now pulled into Skaleby West as some serious testing began to take place. A Bachmann 57xx, hauling two wagons was run onto the layout from a Peco loco lift, which acted as a temporary fiddle yard! The short train was then run over all track on the board to test that everything was running as it should be.....sadly it wasn't! The loco seemed to stall on a few areas which was rather worrying! Considering that all track is brand new this is not likely to be caused by dirty track so I will have to look at this a bit more closely before I lay the track permenantly.

Having looked over the layout I can see that in a couple of places the cork base has started to lift and thus some areas of track have raised slightly. This could have caused the stalling problems so one of my next jobs will be to re-glue this area.

These pictures show the test train during the first run.

The first shot sees the train in the station area. Whilst the second shows it in the goods yard area.

With the two week Easter break now upon us I am hoping that I can really move things on with the layout.

The show

The last week has seen the gaps on the revised floor plan begin to fill up quickly. Confirmation from another RMWeb user has allowed me to add another layout to the list. This sizeable model will pretty much take up one end of the main hall and that has filled one big gap. Other gaps have been filled too with three traders confirming their attendance. The middle of the hall is now full as well. In fact in this room I only have two or three small spaces to fill, room for a couple of smaller layouts perhaps!

I have confirmed with another exhibitor which of their layouts I want and this will help me to put together a display of small / micro layouts in one of the school's wide corridors. With a demonstrator also confirming this week and a diorama likely to attend alongside this stall, I may well have filled one of the corridors too! This is very encouraging news.

I have got permission to expand into some of the classrooms so I can still accomodate a few more people. A good job really as I will need the space if the 3 layouts and 3 traders who are still to confirm all reply in the positive.

So with gaps being filled I am starting to breathe a bit more easily. Now all I have to do is start on the posters, leaflets and other forms of advertising.