Having a couple of years with bits and pieces from my previous house assembled as a 'testing plank' pretending to be a layout I have decided at long last to attempt to bridge the gap from one side of my converted garage to the other to make something approaching a real layout - one where you go from one bit to another (!) in this case from the station on one side to the storage sidings on the other.  Having bought a quantity of 12mm ply as tops for some new baseboards, and 18x44mm timber for the framing,  construction of some new boards the has proceeded. These will fill the gaps between the old chipboard surfaced and partly scenicked (sp) boards inherited from the previous location. In case you are wondering 'this framing is too flimsy', you would be right except that all the boards are sitting on sub-frames that are much more substantial. This initial assembly (as shown in the photos below) is one end using a mix of old and new boards. at some stage I will make boards for other end to form a loop, that will  be used mainly for test running as the layout is meant to be a terminus with a through line to another part of the system (a link from the S&D to WR used mainly for freight exchange). So here is current progress with boards assembled to check levels and flexi track laid out to try to work out the curves.  This will involve unforeseen changes to the station throat pointwork, in fact a radical simplification which will be good in the end, caused by the fact that my garage is about 18" narrower than the room which previously housed the layout.  The plus side is that I have much more length.  Its only when putting it out in the flesh that all these issues really appear, so much of what I drew on paper doesn't really work!  Part2 might actually have a drawn plan to help explain ...

First a view from the inside, with one of the old boards that has some track work with preserving ...

secondly a close up of the left side showing the new station throat board

and lastly a view from the outside showing the sub-frame

My previous attempts at realigning the station throat were just not good enough to give even a minimum radius of 3'6" (absolute minimum for P4) hence realigning the track to swing out nearer the station side wall of the garage .... I'm happy to say that the whole assembly is level and fits!. Just need a bridging piece to the traverser style storage sidings / fiddle yard. The boards are not in their final position, they will all move out towards the end wall, (behind me in the last photo) so I can increase the length of the station by 2-3 coaches with another new board fitted in between the existing old station boards.  The really narrow board with the old station throat will also be replaced with yet another new plywood topped board - more to follow