It has been a weird sort of week, and it is only Wednesday.
While I left my old job a week ago, this is my first relatively quiet week. Partly because Issy has recovered sufficiently from her spinal surgery to go and spend a week with our families. Last week I had meetings every day, but I'm down to just a couple this week. The combination of neurodiversity in the workplace, AI, and ISO committee work is where I'm happy at the moment. At some point I will return to a full-time job, but for now, at least until the house move is (hopefully) done and dusted I'm happy to pick up the odd speaking session and freelance gigs.
Anyway, not knowing exactly what the future will bring, I had a bit of a spending splurge.
Many of the purchases have actually either been waiting in my Hattons "trunk" or have only just been shipped to the UK.
Nothing exciting, all boringly OO gauge and with an industrial and light railway theme. They all really go back to my idea for a W&U-inspired line with elements of Wissington, Kings Lynn and Great Yarmouth docks. That might still happen, most likely as a layout in a box.
Looking at the stock I'm accumulating, I might also dig out an old RM plan that was inspired by the Cromford and High Peak. I bought the baseboard to suit it a few years ago and still haven't assembled it.
Then there is the question of my Cambrian/GWR/WR stock. Originally bought with Apa Valley in mind I don't really want to part with it. A bit of me would love to revisit Apa Valley and the Tanat Valley theme in EM, as I intended to before the last house move. It would very much be in the spirit of that layout, as much a diorama with movement as anything else.And like Apa, I think I need to work within the constraints of a storage unit of some kind, or yet another box. I'm also still tempted by an EM version of TAoC.
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| I have a soft spot for that bridge |
In the meantime, what to do with the stock? The obvious answer is a Titfield Thunderbolt cameo, set in some unspecified post war time period. Effectively, little more than a photo plank.
Underlying all these ideas is the concept of maintaining some commonality Ideally one OO layout could act as the fiddle yard for another, and I certainly don't intend to build multiple fiddle yards. IN fact I have one half built,
Did I mention my rash OO9 purchases? They are going to dwarf my Cadeby cameo. I have vague plans for them, if I can find a very old copy of MRC...
All this begs a question about space at the new house. IF the sale ever goes through my office will have direct access to the attic railway room. I'm looking forward to having that split in space, compared to my current combined office and studio. I want to make better use of technology and ergonomic design on the office front. Here it has always been a bit of a compromise.. At one point I had four screens in use, all taking up deskspace along with the printer/scanner which is mostly used for domestic purposes.
Then there is the 7mm dimension. I suppose the post-retirement GVT and GWR layout might be possible in the new house, but I'm not optimistic. That East Coast light railway idea won't go away, either. But that is a classic case of it getting more difficult to build something with an inherent simplicity. It needs to portray something stark and isolated on a Winter's day. I've images in my mind, but realising them won't be easy and needs experimentation. Some of which will come from playing around with these Kato "Circus" diorama modules.
Which neatly brings me to the 2mm or TT dilemma for Minories (North) . I'm very attracted to a 2mm version, but I'm conscious the original Minories plan was drawn for TT, albeit not TT 120. One thing that layout would be dependent on is the wholesale adoption of DCC, but I think I'm heading in that direction anyway
I feel that my modelling has been on hold for the last two years, and now I have time I don't want to build things that will get damaged amongst all the upheaval. What I do want to do is to get ready for the future, and explore the commonality between projects. I know I can work quickly when circumstances are right. An to go back to my years introducing new working methods into organisations we know how inefficient task swapping is. It certainly seems more expensive when I'm buying consumables for a single project. So if any of these ideas move forward they will do so in parallel
I must admit to having done a bit of cheque book modelling myself recently...with our house on the market and the majority of my hobby "stuff" in storage, I wanted a way to keep connected with the hobby. I've already sold much of my 009, getting something running in EM or 0-16.5 would be too involved, so a bit of on-line shopping plus visits to shops and shows combined with some micro-layout baseboards I'd already built is turning into a very small H0 scale DB layout based around 1990. I can leave this set up in the dining room but could dismantle and box up the whole lot in less than an hour if I needed to.
ReplyDeleteCrucial things about this, given the current situation, are that the pairs of boards fit in the Really Useful Boxes designed for wrapping paper (avoiding possible transit damage) and that I've used Peco Setrack, both for simplicity and the ability to experiment with track layouts by playing trains!
It's funny how modelling ideas can stick with you, sometimes for decades...an EM light railway, French and German branch lines, and something in 0-16.5 have all been in my head since the 1980s as has the Art of Compromise. More recently, TT has wormed its way into my modelling list, but East German rather than British.
Good luck with whatever you end up doing,
Simon.
Yes, our house is currently full of Really Useful But Expensive boxes, some of which will be repurposed later. In fact a layout to suit one of the really big ones , that I use to keep 7/8ths stuff and garden tools in, could make a home for an interesting large cameo layout. In fact that might be where the 009 ends up.
DeleteIf the house move gets delayed anymore I'll definitely be doing something with the Kato dioramas
It is funny how some ideas for layouts just stick with us. It might be a layout we remember imperfectly from an exhibition, the overall ambience of a layout in an article, the trackplan, or just a theme.>ven my late shift to 7/8ths was based on the type of 16mm layout \i found hard to get to work well in a garden