In the beginning ...
Entry posted by jeff_p
307 views
... long, long ago, in a far off shed, in a garden many miles away a railway started taking shape.
I suppose it's a little too much to expect yellow lines of text rolling up the screen getting smaller as they go backed by some triumphant rip roaring sound track, and in reality that would be substantially over the top 
So, about eight years ago (I had to check the date on the pictures) when I lived elsewhere I had a dream about restarting that childhood hobby I looked about the house for space to put a model railway. Deciding that the spare bedroom was just that, spare, I elected to re-designate it as the "hobby room" and started building base boards for a model railway. For reasons which I can't remember now (perhaps I just realised that I wasn't going to live there forever) I chose not to make the construction permanent, and built the boards free-standing and capable of being dismantled.
The shed/workshop saw a frenzy of activity, and eventually a number of base boards were produced. Construction was using 9mm plywood giving seven components which when assembled produces a nearly square layout 2.4m wide by 2.1m deep with a hole in the middle 1.2m wide by 0.75m deep. For those that (like me) still think in the old fashioned way that's a layout approximately 8' wide by 7' deep with a hole 4' by 2'6", but the boards are metric 
The list of boards making up the whole structure is:
- Front centre: 1.2m x 0.75m
- Sides, left and right: 1.5m x 0.6m
- Rear left and right: 1.5m x 0.6
- Traverser: 1.2m x 0.6m
A quick look at the numbers gives away that something doesn't add up across the back, which is true. The two rear boards support the central traverser section and in order to form a stable and rigid platform for this they extend under the traverser section to over lap and interlock. All the board are located with pattern makers dowels and are held together with bolt and wing nuts. This all felt over the top at the time though in hindsight my efforts have been repaid with interest.
As is so often the case with life, spare capacity and opportunity for developing the newly started model railway dried up during the creation of the initial track plans and the boards were stored away.
... and time rolled by, as it does.
Six years ago my partner and I got married (there does seem to be something wrong with calling a lady past a certain age your "girl friend") and we moved to a new town. Lots of changes happened about that time, but the bare baseboards made it through the consolidation process as the content of two houses were merged into our new home, and early last year we both thought it was time to rekindle the modelling hobby. The house has that stereotypical "room in the loft" and after lots of "what if we did this" questions we realised that the old layout base boards, then in storage in the garage, would fit nicely saving time and money and still leave room for desks and storage of other things. The baseboards were extracted, cleared and erected in their new home. Thank goodness for marine plywood, everything just slotted together.
This last picture shows track being laid after literally weeks of pushing points and flexible track about, and so "Lyghtondown" was begun.
Much to do ahead.
Jeff.
-
4
1 Comment
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now