Time For A Trim...

Not me, the Gaugemaster "Pretty English Town" backscene, which just happens to depict the town where I live. Each of the three sheets is 12 inches high, whereas the space I need it to fit in (between the top and bottom side and end members) is about 8⅛ inches. Rather than simply cut 3⅞ inches off the bottom of the sheet, which would "lose" rather a lot of the town scene, I took off about ¾" off the top first (much more and the church steeple would hit the top member and divide the sky in two) then removed the remainder from the bottom. I then tried the trimmed backscene sheet in place, and put the layout in the box to see how things looked. I've also trimmed part of the left hand sheet to continue on from the town sheet and go round the corner to cover the other end of the box.

So, what does it look like?

Like this, is the answer:

I'm quite pleased with it so far.

The church is St. Mary's, the large building in front of it is the Royal Hotel, which does a nice pint of Butty Bach. Off to the left is Penyard Hill, with much of the town of Ross-on-Wye in the foreground. Our house is behind the church, less than 10 minutes walk from the Royal. Think I'll head off for a pint in a bit...

PS: Not a great photo, but this shows the left hand section of the backscene roughly in place. There's a bit of extra length to give room for adjustment if necessary. 

Back in a Box.

Having totally failed to update this blog for several years, here's an update. 

At some point, I got fed up with working on the layout in its box, so I removed it. 

To do this, it was necessary to dismantle the box, which I then dumped in a shed at the railway station where I worked.

It sat there until I left the job last year, losing a few parts in the process. To be honest, it very nearly ended up going to the tip, but I thought it might be useful for spares for my other, complete, APA, which was by then being used to store the layout in for the duration of the upcoming house move.

The acquisition of a Gaugemaster photographic backscene (two, actually, but that's another story), mostly because it depicts the town we were moving to, set me thinking about perhaps going back to the original, boxed, presentation, especially since the layout would live in a damp, dusty garage for much of the time.

Having got the layout perhaps 85% complete, it's becoming more vulnerable to damage during handling and storage and now (having moved) there are more possibilities for the thing to be exhibited, so boxing it again makes a lot of sense.

But what to do?

The original box had bits missing and had been modified, with various holes for tracks to go "off-stage", electrical connections, etc.

A check revealed that the two hardboard panels for the sides were missing, along with one of the eight screws that go through the ends and into the side members, holding the whole shebang together. 

One of the two track holes (exit stage left) still lined up, so no problem, but I must have slewed the exit stage right track a bit at some point. I'll most likely solve this by widening the hole a bit, and it'll need disguising with a tree either side (or similar) anyway. 

The missimg side panels issue is easily solved; I don't need a solid panel on the viewing side of either this or the other box, so I nicked one side panel from the other box, leaving an open side. I may sort out a couple of clear panels to keep dust out during storage, or maybe I won't. 

Here are a couple of progress pics...

The sorry remains of the old box, in the background is an 0-16.5 layout in progress:

The floor, side panel nicked from the other APA, side members and ends are screwed together, and a test fit shows the layout still fits...the other APA can be seen sulking in the background: