A few years back I wrote this:

The best part of six years on nothing much has changed, such are the vagaries of life. when I say nothing much has changed I refer to this project Shelfie 3…

However Sheflie 4 is completed, possibly will be looking for a new home, as will Shelfie 5 which is reaching completion itself.

Shelfie 3 then (below), it works and is utterly engaging. More so now that there are a mixture of electromagnets, and permanent magnets for the Dingham uncouplers.

The operation is hands free, and era runs from 1968 through to around 1982. This allows me to run stock from late British Rail green liveries up to firmly established ‘blue grey’ by 1982. The stumbling block is the scenery.

I can do countryside easily, I know what it looks like. Arcadia, I can tick that box! The urban area of the M62 corridor for me however isn’t intuitive and capturing it in a plausible manner is most definitely a bit of a stumbling block.

The layout design (Shelfie 3) is compromised anyway, but that’s not helped by not having a natural affinity for the subject or first hand experience, of the type shown by Steve Hall’s work above, seen at Leeds 2026 exhibition. So at the moment I have a blank canvas that despite several starts, I’ve wiped clean and reset.

It’s a sort of paralysis by analysis, one example above, and it’s very interesting talking to friends whom have seen the various iterations and don’t get why the trigger hadn’t been pulled on whichever template they’ve seen at the time. As invariably for them the test piece on view has ‘worked’

Visiting the Mansfield Portland College narrow gauge exhibition this past weekend was a good experience. There were around 50 layouts to see, most of them small in footprint and a wide range of subject matter. Most were not really floating my boat, but that’s sort of irrelevant, if they’re giving pleasure to other visitors and their owner/operators that’s what the hobbies for. A few though did grab me in either the design or functionality of them. The Basin above, uses electromagnetic uncouplers to make the Kadees work and hearing how they have made them work effectively was definitely of interest.

So having visited two good shows over the past couple of weeks the motivation button has been reset. The only problem is I’m not sure if it’s the Shelfie 3 layout motivation button..