So, in late 2005, once we finally moved into our house, the plan was for Himself to collect all his engines, carriages and track from his parents’ garage and get to work on a proper layout. As a boy, he built H gauge layouts with his grandfather and every time he saw his old trains when we were visiting, he’d just get this look….
How he came to switch his thinking towards an N-gauge layout instead is not something I remember — I mean, we have the room given that we are a family of two in a four bed house with a big ol’ conservatoy — but I do remember it was me who suggested we use the Ikea coffee table with the glass top and pull out drawer. If it would still serve as a coffee table, why not?
When you move from a one room studio into a new build where the kitchen is the size of the old flat there’s a lot of other work to get done first. Then a little interlude in Hong Kong (okay, a six month assignment that became two years) put him behind schedule. Work did not get underway until months after our return in 2009. For large blocks of time (i.e. the golf season) it does not get worked on but come the cold and dark work picks up big time.
I add new pictures each time significant progress has been made. Or insignificant progress. It’ll just depend. Best subscribe of you want to take the journey with us.
Where does all the ‘stuff ‘come from? Harburn Hobbies in Edinburgh, Model Zone in central London and Hattons (online, as they are Liverpool) for the most part, but some of the trains are from our friend Richard and the craft and bead shops of Sham Shui Po account for a great deal of the paper, foam, wood and plastic elements. Naturally, we also have a few haunts in New York City and Las Vegas — in keeping with out International Couple of Mystery status.
