I made the mistake of building a layout before joining a club. I joined a local club a couple of years ago and, after a lot of soul searching, I decided to start again from scratch. This is because I learned a lot from other club members and gained experience from assisting with the building of club layouts. My own layout is 20' x 8' and is housed in it's own shed (Model Railway Room) in the garden so the decision to start again was not taken lightly. However as Covid struck getting out to B&Q, Wickes etc proved difficult at first so I decided to build a Layout in a Box first. Well three boxes actually as I wanted a layout that had sections that could be linked and could be displayed at local shows when they start again. Box one contains the station and a small goods area. Box two contains a small creamery in a siding and a road bridge. Travelling through the road bridge you come to a small fiddle yard which is contained in box three which also houses some of the rolling stock. All three sections are joined using the wing nuts and bolts supplied and the tracks have fish plates that keep the tracks alinged (I tried soldering the tracks to copper clad sleepers to line them up but I couldn't get it right). The layout needs some more detailing (and a name) before I can say it's done. If I have learned anything from my experiences then it's:- 1/ I should have joined a club before laying a single piece of track. 2/ I enjoy building a layout as much, possibly more, than operating it.

Posted by RichWay at 2021-11-14 11:46:34 UTC