Well, its been a while since I posted one of these. Update time, if anyone is interested.

So, last time I left things off saying I wanted to do work with the Woodhead Route and its stock. That stills stands true, I do. But I've since then thought about expanding slightly into the realm of AU railways - which I know are popular, theres certainly room for a lot of speculative thought. What if it had expanded? What if these trains survived? And so on...

And so with my recent ordering of things like KR Models BR Black Fell and GT3 - and also wanting to order the Rails/Heljan GT1 as I call it, the 18000, although I'm undecided if I want the Black or Late Crest Green...the lined Black would match with the Bachmann 10000 if I ever get my hands on one and fit in with the Fell and other things like the EM2s Electra and Aurora when I get around to ordering those, but Green would also go with some of the other EMs. I think Pandora is Green and another one, maybe Ariadne? Plus it just, looks nice.

Anyway...

But yes, I've fallen down that rabbit hole. All those engines did appear in this area at one time for sure. For example we know the Fell was in the now converted Manchester Central, albeit I think it was on fire, hope that doesnt happen to mine... So I've decided I'm going to make a 'What If?' railway with all of these and a few others. All of these locos I've mentioned had either short, interesting and/or quite sad lives with being around so briefly like the Fell, being deemed a failure and never given a chance like the GT3, or being taken too soon like the EMs due to reasons outside their control. So I'm going to give them a chance - although in model form - to live on and be given the time of day they deserve as interesting, fascinating little nuggets of railway history that they are.  What if these engines survived? What if they kept working?

What if they thrived?

They all overlapped in some fashion across the late 50s through the 60s and to the early 70s - bulk it out with some other general things like an 08 or two, some class 37s, maybe a Hymek, some passenger Bubble Cars or early DMUs like a 101 and 108 perhaps, maybe squeeze in a class 128 DPU as they were just starting to come in, and theres a believable, living, breathing rail network and infrastructure working for the period.

This also solves the problems of what to do with the 80s era and Railfreight stuff I've picked up - its just a future iteration of things running on the same fictional network. Plus those military trains, they just passin through.
What about that class 17 and 06 shunter from up in Scotland? Coming to visit, obviously.

Is it a mess? Yes it is. Is it focused and detailed? Not really. Is it realistic? Not even slightly.

Am I happy? Absolutely.

I've picked up some lovely thin wooden boards - I wanted a collapsing table of some kind like a pasting table to tidy away when I needed the floorspace but none of them were wide enough, although were long enough - to place onto the floor so nothing is running on the carpet, and some bundles of secondhand track I can clean up. Not completely planned the route out yet  and the engine shed is nowhere near as populated as I would like it to be, but I've finally decided what I'm doing.

Seems like a sensible first step, at least.

How I'm going to do it is another step entirely and I'm still working that bit out.