Welcome to the obligatory first entry for the blog

Fal Vale has come out of a plan to build a large layout for a room in my house called Fal Vale Junction which is currently on hold as I have managed to acquire a bargain deal on facebook of boards and scenery that covered an area of 7.5m (24ft 8") by 2.4m (7ft 11") in an L shaped format for a grand total of £2.50! There are some items in the lot that are surplus to requirements and these will be sold to fund other purchases for the layout.

The above CJ Freezer plan forms the basis of the layout which will see another two 3ft boards acquired for both arms to have sufficient space in the fiddle yard as well as a nice meandering scene for the trains to run through. The layout will be based on a preserved line being restored so there will be some modifications to the design in terms of changing it from a terminus to a through line (although the line will be cut short at the station area with evidence of lifted track / work in progress to restore track).

First stage today will be to strip the existing boards back to the bare board and effect any repairs that are needed to the boards but on initial inspection there does not appear to be any need to repair anything. There is a need to build stands for the layout as there was none with it so lots of woodwork needed for that alone!

There are two aspects that will make this project challenging, 1) very limited budget and 2) a self imposed deadline of 25th October for a club exhibition although whether it will be able to be shown there or not is another story but we shall see.