Some of you may have seen on here a few weeks ago  an advertisement for a layout that was free to a good home , should find few photos on there of layout before collection

I thought i would try keep everyone in the loop how the restoration is going on the layout to bring it up to modern standards and breath new live back into it. After sorting and arranging a pick up i managed to get layout back down to Southampton from Pontefract ,the advantages of having family estate car :-)

we managed to arrange a work day at our club so we could have the layout up all together and start listing a snag list of what needed sorting and in what priority they needed doing , after a couple of hours with brushes , hoovers and air brushes we managed to give the layout a good dusting and cleaning to find the state of the track and some of the mechanism

we then spent some time locating all of the loose parts that had been removed or fallen off the layout from buildings point of view to try see the layout in all its glory and see what was missing.luckily for us most if not all of teh parts are there for the buildings so only small amount needs replacing .  As you can see from the photos we were blown away by the level of modeling done by Jack , we were constantly finding little gems on the layout being it an animation or just the level of modeling skill involved . 

We did get  a loco to complete a rough circuit of the track using  controller and some crocodile clips juts see what the joins were like and what bits of track might need looking at . Luckily there are only 2 points that need a bit of attention form the 19 that is on the layout . one that needs complete replacement and one just needs the bar repaired.

We then tackled the stripping of all but a few of the electrics as these are most out of date and in need of replacing , only things left are a few droppers for track power  , all the yard lights had been damaged so all these were stripped an will be replaced with new Leds

repairs on some of the building has started , some will need a fair amount of attention but will be restored , only  a couple of things will not be returning on the layout  , also  a replacement peco point been purchased to replace the broken one that is located in the engine shed 

one thing that i have managed to do it home is seal the boards underneath as the boards are chipboard so were bit flakey in places , this is to be sanded down to remove rough edges before resealing with Pva

please find below photos after we gave her a good clean and stripped electrics and sealed the boards , also measuring up for the replacement point as we aren't sure what track has been used