Canal Street Wharf: baseboards...

As a professional model maker it's sometimes hard to switch off from the day job, as such I like to have little personal projects on the go... with a self imposed 2 week Christmas holiday (I really need to recharge after a busy year) I've made a start on my own little layout, one I shared sketches of on here a few weeks ago...

Although I had ideas for the basic layout, I'd not really decided on the size. I was pondering using the same wooden boxes that house Creech Grange and Vowchurch - however, I decided to get another aluminium flight case instead, so that Canal Street Wharf is actually smaller than the previous two 006.5 projects (although still larger than Kisten Torfwerk).

That has limited the board to 42x30xcm, but I think the compromise will be worth the portability of a truly versatile miniature layout. There should be space in the case for a small stock box and controller too... The whole oval is skewed on the board, the canal at the front. Along the back of the standard gauge siding will be a brick wall. Behind this a small woods, with a drainage ditch. Behind the warehouse and caravan the track is raised above the surrounding land, as if it's a bit damp here... there will be a small water tank and coaling point here.

The board is just 3 laminations of 6mm MDF glued together and now sealed with paint, waiting on some filler to begin to add the landscape before gluing the track down. More soon over the holidays...