An (almost) blank canvas

I wanted to post a couple of 'before' pictures, well, not before pictures as that would show the original side of the layout that i was never really that happy with. I've never understood my dads fascination with these pissy little stations every few inches, i'll be removing (re-developing would be a better description) these as time goes on.

Insted i'll post a couple of pictures i took just after the new windows were put in and i actually decided i wanted to do this. That viaduct looked really nice across the first window (the one with that green piece of wood and the chicken wire in the first picture) but i decided to actually build a higher level across the gap so i can have some hidden sidings below actually running onto the window sill. That means putting the viaduct where it is curently standing (second picture) across the middle window.


















The third window is where i threw everything and is a mess right now, but i need to extend the board out in line with the door before i really decide what to do with it. I have decided to move the ruined castle here though as it's lost where it is.




This weekend though, it's all about trying to figure out what the fuck i'm actually doing after diving in headfirst last week and trying to build the new part of the high level without really thinking it through properly. I'm also going to paint the rails a rust colour.

I live a Rock n' Roll lifestyle for sure.. So much so that i'm sitting here on a Friday night when i should really be in the pub. Oh well.

I recently inherited a shed..

It's something of a right of passage into *cough* middle age. It's seemingly a popular enough topic to warrant a couple of those books that are always given as slightly whacky christmas presents. Men and their sheds. Just what do men do in their sheds?

Well, mines more of a brick building, it's been there as long as i remember, there being my mums back garden in Gravesend. It was built, probably before i was born, for one sole reason (apparantly not covered in the book) - It housed my dad's model railway. It was a TT gauge layout, and i don't remember any of it, i've seen pictures, but apparantly i convinced him to sell it all sometime in the late 70s/early 80s and buy a shitload of OO, you know, the Hornby train set that is also a right of passage. Well, it was for me. Anyway, this shed never really housed a permanent layout as long as i ever remember, it was just used to build portable ones, or in the case of what was probably his crowning achievement, the big Model Railway at York Railway Station. It was built 2 boards at a time and transported up by van. It was the 80s, 'The Age of the Train' It was even opened by Jimmy Saville.

Then sometime around summer 2004 he started work on actually building the layout he wanted in there. The 'trainroom' as it was always known as, was actually finally going to live up to it's name. Well, 5 years or so later, it's was as finished as it was ever going to be. Or so i thought.

I lost my dad almost 3 months ago, and i guess it's obvious that after something like that happening a lot of soul searching takes place and a lot of decisions have to be taken. I didn't have a clue what to do with this thing at first, i knew i didn't want to dismantle it, or sell it, but then i wasn't sure if i could carry on going out there and keeping it maintained and running. I don't even live in the same town as it now, so it's not like i could just pop in every so often..

Then it all became clear. On the day of the funeral the driver of the van that would regularly come down from york and transport the boards back up, who hadn't really kept in touch with my parents, aside probably from a christmas card every year, came down with his wife. He said he couldn't miss it, and of course wanted to see the layout in the train room, as did everyone who came round the house that morning. So i took them out there, and it was one of the proudest monents of my life. That and being told afterwards that one of his friends had tried to count the amount of people in the crematorium but had lost count at 200.

3 weeks ago we got new windows in the shed, it was something he was planning to do for a while, but it meant i had to pretty much rip up one side of the layout. As i was taking it up and putting it all in boxes i had this thought that as much as it was his layout and he built it and paid for it, it was something we did together, and it was now mine, and i could do what i wanted with it, so i am, and this is where i'm going to keep track (pun slightly intended) of everything.

I just about managed to not saw into my finger today, and in hindsight buying spray paint and using it in an unventilated room probably wasn't the best thing i could have done, but i'll get there!