So - some rather large developments in the world of Oldmoor. Brace yourselves, as I realise this may seem a bit sudden (and I mean that more sincerely than I perhaps normally would!).
For those of you who have things to be getting on with, I'll save you the bother of reading any further and bring you up to speed here: Oldmoor has gone. Not a fallen-down-the-back-of-the-sofa type thing, but rather it's been taken up. I know that's going to seem really strange, to put it lightly, given how I was adding new ballast only the other week, but there is a logic behind it - so read on...
(I'll try and keep this brief)
I've come to the conclusion that the layout, at 8'x4', was a bit too big to be practicable and to get looking as nice as I wanted it (or anything close, really). The main issue was not being able to reach so much of it - work such as ballasting the 'far side' (i.e. through Oldmoor Junction station), and detailing the station itself, was going to prove very difficult when leaning over four feet of 1:76 town!
Another factor was the time it's taken me to get as far as I had with the layout. It's been two years since we moved the layout upstairs, and whilst I made some progress which I was very happy about, I could never devote as much time as I wanted to be able to towards developing it all. And so the bedroom was taken up by this thirty-two-square-foot board, mostly finished in some areas but woefully undeveloped in others, and all looking a bit of an eyesore really (yes, I know it was a work-in-progress, but it was a particularly
slow work-in-progress).
The space the layout took up, I decided, would be much better-used if the layout, well, wasn't there. It's a large amount of space I should like to be able to make use of, and given I've found myself becoming a little bit uninterested in developing a layout to such a degree as I was when we moved it in here, I feel like this version does need to go. I'm not totally uninterested in model railways as a whole - Lord, no - I'm still very much interested in the whole scene, and have some ideas for post-Oldmoor Junction in the works - but I think the task, which is essentially what it had become, of building the layout was getting to be a bit more of a chore than a hobby. I really think the issue was in the size of it all: I rarely - if ever - used much of the track I'd set down, it was very difficult to dust and keep tidy, and the track wasn't always laid in the best possible way, either.
So, last week I set about packing the whole thing away. I've got some photos, which I'll attach at the end of this post, but I'll describe it briefly here now as well. The buildings, and all things which weren't pinned down to the board, went first, leaving just the track. Then, the track came up, starting with the bits which hadn't been ballasted, and then working along through the bits which were glued
and pinned. The stock went away before the track came up, and now the whole lot - which is heavier than I'd expected! - is sitting in boxes, engines neatly bubble-wrapped, waiting to be used again. As I write this, the board is waiting to be chopped up - a task I'm hoping to get done at some point during the coming week - and then it can be moved downstairs in pieces, and gotten rid of. I must admit, the whole thing is a little sad but I've got some new ideas...
So these new ideas - what are they? Well, the layout will be coming back, just nowhere as big as it was. It'll be a simple second-radius-loop affair, allowing for all of the buildings I already have to be used again in the middle of the board. It's going to use the same range of stock, and have the same setting (or rather, lack thereof). It's going to be a single-track layout but with a passing loop and small two-platform station: there'll be small depot and goods areas as well. The plan is for the layout to fit under a bed - meaning it can be brought out when I want to use it, but at all other times it'll be out of sight. This seems, to me at least, to be a much more practicable size of layout than the 8'x4' set-up.
I realise I have rambled on for some time now, so I'll leave you with these photos of the layout being taken apart - they're not of the best quality, but hopefully they show the stages of pulling it all up, and how odd it looked after each one!
My intention is very much to remain on the forum, and I'll be back on here at some point - though probably not for a couple of months I expect - with developments about the upcoming layout. I should just like to take this opportunity to say thank you so much to all of you lovely lot - you know who you are!
- who have helped me in developing the skills and ideas I used for Oldmoor Junction: I shall most definitely continue to develop and use them in the next version of the layout, to a much better standard than before.
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-Peter