Introduction

This blog is about an experiment in railway modelling. Well that isn't strictly true because just about everything it might end up covering has been borrowed from elsewhere, so actually it is about tried and tested railway modelling techniques. The experimental aspect is that "I" haven't tried any of them before, or at least not for so long that I've forgotten how to do them.

The other unifying theme is that it revolves around the construction of micro layouts to fit into the IKEA Apa storage box. Like the rest of this blog there is nothing original in this, Ian Holmes has been writing on the topic for sometime and successfully exhibiting such layouts. Ian's is one of those names that keep popping up when I search the internet for ideas and inspiration. The other key ones that have influenced me will appear in the links section, but the catalyst for all this has to be Chris Nevard's layouts which have shown many of how careful use of RTR items in a  relatively small space can produce a convincing layout that only a few years ago would have been beyond reach of all but the most gifted modellers.

Which is just as well, because I'm not a gifted modeller, or even a reasonably skilled one. Not only that but apart from the occasional foray into OO9 I've spent most of the last twenty five years focusing on 16mm scale narrow gauge  railways in the garden

"Hales" My OO9 Micro Layout from the 1990's