Measure twice, cut once, they say.

This one fell at the 'measure once' stage.

The layout was designed to have four boards 3' 6" long, 2ft wide and one 2' square. It's portable and would have to be stored, and the design takes care of this. It also has to fit in the back of the car, a Focus estate. That's where the problems come in - I made an assumption (which is the mother of all cocks ups). So now there are four boards 4' x 1'9", two mainly station, one mainly river and one fiddle.

The disdvantage is that I lose 3" off the scenery the length of the layout. The railway is unaffected. A decided advantage is that I simplify the cross-baseboard point and signal controls. I can still run trains 3ft long plus loco, I can still give myself problems shunting, all I wanted to do. I want to store all boards in their 'proper' orientation, i.e. right way up, so that things have less of a chance of dropping off (who am I kidding)

I was at the stage of about to start to buy wood - but fortunately hadn't placed any orders. So now back to the drawing board to replan.