This Christmas sees the completion of the new railway room, the lighting and electrics were finished and flooring laid just before Christmas Eve. This meant that on returning from work on Thursday I was able to assemble Fen End Pit along one wall. Those who follow my blog will know that there is a grand scheme to model part of the Stour valley in P4 as a big 'roundy-roundy' that goes around the room. However common sense dictates that rather than launch immediately into that project I should get the feel of the new room (sounds a bit arty) before rushing in and building baseboards.

Prior to assembling the layout, when the room just had the spare bed in it, there was something of the Tracy Ermine about it, the Karndean flooring and spot lights on lighting track gave a 'contemporary art gallery' feeling! The walls are Dulux 'Cornflower White', favourite back-scene colour for many years, it gives a nice neutral backdrop.

I still need to sort of shelving/storage, it is amazing how much space a complete run of Bylines, MRJ and NG&IRMR take up. PC and workbench are currently up the other end of the room, ultimately I intended to use kitchen units but I'm still thinking about that.

Following a very enjoyable day at Steam In Beds back in November there has been a lot of thinking going on about the future of Fen End Pit. The original part of the layout is now over 15 years old and it is showing its age and the wear and tear of the exhibition circuit and storage. The layout still puts on a good show and seems to be appreciated by the public but some of the underpinnings are decidedly worn out. MDF baseboards do not have a design life of 15 years, they have survived remarkable well but the the alignment dowels are shot and in certain places the MDF has started going furry!

What I am now considering is a complete new Fen End Pit, I will reuse most of the track and scenic features but start off with new baseboards, legs etc. This is leading me to think about what other changes I might make to the design, as with all layouts there are things that don't work quite as well as originally hoped. Some of this is causing lots of 'hard-thinking' and TurboCAD has been working overtime while I try to come up with ideas. My copies of 'The Leighton Buzzard Light Railway' by Sydney Leleux, 'Narrow Gauge tracks in the sand' by Rod Dingwall, 'Industrial and Mechanised Modelling' by Dave Rowe and, of course, Roy Links 'Industrial Narrow Gauge Handbook' are being well thumbed!

To end with I'll attach a couple of pictures of the current layout, I've not done anything destructive yet, just removed the backscene so I can use the plain wall. Hope you like them.

So Greetings of the Season to you all and 'Happy Modelling' for 2016.

David