well its all coming to a head, Today I had my picture appear in the local paper, stood in front of my layout, informing all of the Cardiff show, occuring this weekend, further details on this site..........

other than a poor quality image on the show site, this is the first public presentation of Sanatorium road, and im still not convinced how the layout will be taken,

a modern image 00 layout based around an end of yard head shunt, with a small terminus station adjacent, and a Network rail facility loosing resembling that at Taff vale sidings at the rear of Canton Sheds, CF.

its my first venture into DCC with sound and digital pointmotors, and was built to run my collection of scratch built stock, from RHTT, HOBC, stone blowers, travelling twin cranes, war flats with excavators, test trains, an SGT. and various other stuff, I build from plasticard and anything i can lay my hand on,

the time line to date has involved a four month build, with all finaces being drawn from the sale of my last layout, waun gron park, on Ebay,

the long term plan was for BR2975 to assist as operator at the show, but in the eleventh hour he is off to a stag weekend for his future son-in- law, to which i too was invited........a tad frustrating, which resulted in my recruiting a mate with no operating experience to spend 2 hours last night playing trains.....

the Dynamis controller causing much gnashing of teeth when the signal is interupted...... what joy.

my intention is to offer some potted tweets, based around my experiences as a sole operator taking my new layout to a two day show, helping with the organisation and set up, and hopefully uploading some pictures.

another chum has offered to video some activity on the train set, and up load it to you tube to which I will forward a link,

this exercise is purely a learning curve for me to familiarise myself with blogging,

the layout is now boxed up, and sat in my van, outside the flat, awaiting 2.30 pm tomorow, when I finish early and make my way to the set up of the show,

I have had some rather humorous texts from local builders with whom I work, who knew nothing of my noctural activities until my smiling chops appeared in the Penarth Times...... oh I laughed.

thanks for reading.

Paul.