Stage One, The Blank Canvas……..

Well here it is at long last the blank canvas.

I set to and dismantled the original layout. I must admit it took a little longer than I had expected. I thought it would be better to pack away all of my Loco’s and Rolling Stock in their original boxes for safety, and after all they might be there for a long time. As I was putting away the Loco’s I got a pleasant surprise. To my amazement I found eight, yes eight, brand new, still wrapped in tissue paper, Pullman Coaches. These had been put away in a box when I first built the layout, as I had no room for them at the time. What a find!!

The blank base board. I forgot how big it was……

The size of it is basically a ten foot square “L” shape. I think I may be taking out shares in scalescenes in order to fill up all of the space. But first things first, I’m going to completely paint the walls and the ceiling while there it nothing on the board to splash paint on (makes sense I suppose).

After achieving my goal of clearing the board, the wheel fell off. After I finished work tonight, I invited my work colleague Andrew, the scratch builder I told you about in an earlier post, to visit. He only came to have a look at the space I had to build on, well, it happened.

What would that look like there? Would that look right there? Will that fit here? and so on. So after two hours I had lost my blank canvas again.

Don’t worry there hadn’t been a really high tide and there was an accident with the ship. It just happened to be placed on the board to make sure the scale was right.

We placed track, discussed positions for buildings and generally had an impromptu brainstorming session. I think I have decided to have a raised level at the back with a fiddle yard underneath. This makes sense because I can create a busy High Street and a residential road up there, while hiding all of the rolling stock underneath.

I’m also going to partially fill in the corner so I can create a working dock scene complete with a quayside and dock. So I’ve set to and cleared all the buildings out of the way again, so, at the weekend I can paint the walls and ceiling, build the upper level and extend the corner ready for the dock. Sorted.

Until next time…….

Chris