As the heading suggests, this is my 3rd attempt to build a model of the West Highland line. Built in a spare bedroom, the layout is set in the early 1980's where steam heat and corporate blue rule. Incorporating 4 stations built over 3 levels with each station in its own scenic environment, a train can travel up to 145 feet in total as it traverses the line. As I hope can be seen from the attached plan, there are:

• a main fiddle yard and 2 stations on the low level continuous loop, Garelochead and Ardlui
  
• a horseshoe intermediate section with 1 station, Bridge of Orchy, connecting to the upper level
  
• a second horseshoe in the reverse direction comprising Fort William station, Mallaig Junction yard and the upper level fiddle yard which serves as Corpach or Mallaig as required.
  

It has taken 3 years to lay, fine tune and prove the trackwork and validate the concept of running the West Highland WTT. I can now run all summer trains from either of my copies of the 1979 or 1983 WTT as desired. Stations and scenery are largely complete although much detailing work remains to be completed. Trackwork is Peco streamline or set track with 33 of the 60 small radius points currently motorised. Control is DCC through a wireless Prodigy Advance system which controls a fleet of 10 class 37's, 3 class 27 and 2 class 20. All locos are sound chipped with Loksound chips carrying a variety of different sounds. Rolling stock is mostly weathered with 6 rakes of 3 coach mark 1 passenger stock and a multitude of freight and departmental stock typically as seen on the WHR in the early 80's. In addition I have a green 4 coach rake of mark 1's waiting for a suitably liveried Hornby K1 to enable the steam specials to commence their summer running.

As ever there is still much work to be done and I hope that over the coming months I am able to record in this blog the completion of:

• Fort William station and surrounding area
  
• Locomotive detailing
  
• semaphore signalling
  
• backscenes including one for Fort William incorporating Ben Nevis
  
• fine tuning of the trackside and station scenery
  

I hope that you find this and the attached photos interesting, apologies for the absence of captions but I cannot work out how to achieve this!. Once I have sorted the captions issue I will add further photographs showing the wide variety of trains that I run shortly. In the meantime all thoughts and comments on potential improvements gratefully received.