The planning is now pretty much finalised, a single line extension to one of the sidings. The useful feature of having detachable buildings is that I can re-arrange them to suit a new scenario. Above you get an idea of the blocks/sizes of structures that'll be required, if not the actual buildings themselves. Thoughts are now turning towards the track now, inset or overgrown weeds, a connecting line to an industry or an industrial siding in a factory yard.
This week the layout has been reassembled in preparation for a new phase of work on it. At the moment it’s standing without any buildings permanently fixed allowing me to spend looking at the structure of the layout, its track plan, and how to maximise its display potential, including the possibility of it becoming US eastern seaboard HO gauge, rather than UK outline OO.
Being able to look at the layout from all sides as opposed to just one, is showing some of the design faults as built, but as above, lets me look at making the best out of what I have. There’s also a good deal more photographic potential than perhaps I previously realised, the two shots here being quick snaps out of the Canon G10.
Over the past couple of weeks the question has been asked a couple of times as to what will be happening to the layout. In simple terms it will be finished. This weekend I had a request for images of the layout to use in a layout planning book, which was particularly nice as the layout hasn’t yet been seen in public. As part of the discussion of which images to use and why, it got me thinking again as regards the final look of the layout. Historically I’ve moved buildings around for photography which has worked most of the time. Now however I’ve come to the conclusion that whilst working for photography purposes, as a layout in its own right, for this trackplan and board size, the scenic module concept won’t work in achieveing the final quality and impact I want the layout to have. Originally the fiddle yard area board was to be blocked off, but I’ve now decided to include scenery along the whole frontage. The actual fiddle yard won’t change, but the area of the board in front of it will do, dramatically.
Albion Yard is the result of wanting to get a layout up and running easily and to that extent is OO and uses Ready to Run motive power. It has also been flexible enough to act as a photo set, and has appeared in Peco Videos, Railway Modeller, Hornby Magazine, and Model Railway Journal.
Like most projects it has suffered from a bit of stagnation, recently this has occured whilst getting ‘Bawdsey’ ready for its three outings this year. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had many offers of places at exhibitions over the past few years for the layout despite it being incomplete. This week I’ve decided that layout must be finished, and have made a provisional agreement to show it in 2011, and have one other show under discussion. I’ve been thinking about how much of it will need altering, and I hope the final display I have in mind will be an unusual and interesting talking point.
Albion Yard 
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