The IKEA cabinet doors arrived in the post this morning and by mid afternoon they were fitted. So all is left is to add the layout on top!

The upper shelves in each cabinet are designed to protect any under layout electrics, etc., the most obvious being the turntable. Each shelf is adjustable if more or less space is required in the appropriate cabinet.

There is not much I can physically add at the moment, so I dusted off Sketchup after 6 months and found its intuitive learning curve largely intact in my brain. I quickly mocked up the cabinets and then started to add the track, turntable and basic buildings:

The two road engine shed is going to be based on various Midland sheds of an LNWR/LMS origin. Behind it will be the locomotive cassette which Metalsmiths sells. This "fiddle yard" may be screened off by a high brick wall. The backdrop will also be a brick retaining wall which will also mask the videophone at the extreme right of the layout.

The turntable will be by Metalsmiths, based on the 70ft Ransome and Rapier model. This will be placed in the middle cabinet. The three sidings off to the right will contain an ash pit at the rear, coaling road in the centre and coal hole wagon siding. As a small shed there will be a fair amount of hard labour involved by the shed staff - no LMS concrete towers here, despite the likely Scot and Jube visitors. The "cafeteria system" employed by the LMS will work with this layout. Essentially, an arriving loco will be turned and backed onto the ash pit. It will then move on to the turntable and back onto the coaling road where it will also be watered (the coal hole will have an integral roof top tank). Then the loco will be turned and either returned into service or laid up on shed. Other operational activities will include coal deliveries and ash removal. For this one wagon and a tank engine will have to use the turntable.

The complete lack of points is necessary in order to fit an operational layout into what is a large diorama.

The next job will be to get this plan down on paper at a 1:43.5 scale to check for minimum radii, etc.