A new direction

Over the past few months - as you've probably noticed if you're a regular reader - posts about modelling have tailed off rather. As I observed previously, a lot of this has been down to the development of the MRJ Index taking precedent, but it's also partly the realisation that my grand designs (ok, fairly modest designs) were just not going to happen in the near future because of a lack of the necessary space and time. My plans relied on converting our garage into a workshop/railway room, but this has had to go on the back burner. Also, the amount of time necessary to complete such a project would be fairly considerable. Consequently, I'd lost a bit of direction and drive.

So this past weekend I decided it was time to start investigating the possibility of something a lot smaller, in fact something small enough that it could live permanently on the worktop in our spare room. This would not preclude the other ideas from one day coming to fruition but would likely stand a better chance of getting built, at least in the short-to-medium term.

The scenic part of the layout (or maybe 'working diorama' would be a more suitable description) would need to fit on a single 4'x2' baseboard with simple detachable cassettes for 'off-stage' storage. The challenge, then, is to find a suitable concept/prototype that would work in such a small space, with enough potential scenically and operationally to satisfy me.

I have some interesting ideas brewing, but I'll save these for another post!