Just a couple of photos to show current progress on the 7mm scale narrow gauge shelf layout. The track plan is based on the Eastgate Tramway by the late Phillip Moss but is flipped end-to-end. Running from a small station on the left to a hidden siding on the right, which is behind a low relief warehouse of the Lincolnshire Egg Packers. Now I have to work out a wiring diagram and start laying the track.
As Mrs J has kept me busy gardening these last few weeks of sunshine, progress in the shed has been slow. However, I have managed to get the boards for the top shelf 0:16.5 layout ready. I had two boards three feet by fourteen inches already, earmarked for another project, and as these didn't quite go the whole length of the shelf I fabricated a shorter lenghth for the right end. You can just about see the joints in the picture. The hole in the end is to allow future access to a fiddle yard if the layout ever gets to a show.
The back scene, or sky, had to be repainted. I tried to match the end to the old one but it failed, so now the sky is basicaly a very light grey with faint tinges of blue.
Now to work out the tracl layout.
At last, after nearly four months of intermittent work, the railway shed is ready for layout construction to begin.
Here we have a picture of its present situation, taken from the doorway. The main worksurface, on top of old kitchen units, is to be the foundation for the 009 layout baseboards, while the shelf to the right is going to hold a small 0:16.5 7mm scale layout. At least, that's the idea. The cupboards underneath hold a multitude of boxes full of the essential stuff needed for modelling. Kits, paints, tools, old cardboard, brickpapers, etc.. This includes a box full of old Superquick kits and a batch of even older Bilteezi card kits that may actually get made! A number of baseboards can be seen on the worktop, ready for putting in place. Now for a track plan.
Well, what a year it has been, with one thing and another. I won't bore you with the shenanigins around Covid19 that affected both MrsJ and myself, suffice to say we have survived the various lockdowns and both had our first vaccination, so are feeling reasonably chipper. The other major event has been the search for a new home. MrsJ decided that we needed to move nearer our daughter and our grandchildren so a move some 30 miles away, to Sudbury, has been on the cards for some months now. What our son feels about this (he only lives some ten minutes away with his family) is unrecorded, but I was overruled in the decision.
We've finally found and organised a new home. A small bungalow in a pleasant quiet estate, seemingly full of elderly residents, on the edge of Sudbury and are moving tomorrow. Actually, most of our possessions have gone bit by bit over the last three weeks while we went over to prepare the place, and only the larger furniture bits and pieces need to go. At the moment our new 'library' looks like this:
