Demolition and Rebuilding

Last week, I started the task of dismantling the old layout. The objective is to regain all the track material, and as much of the wiring and track underlay as practicable. My rolling stock and electronics are already packed and relocated, as well as a large part of my assembled buildings, but a few are still left.

This task was accompanied by thoroughly mixed feelings. I've started working on this train room almost five years ago; a lot of time, effort and thought went into this project. Certainly not everything went right, and not everything was fun. The room was very uncomfortable in both summer and winter, and the floor kept flooding when there was heavy rain - issues that were unfixable without basically tearing almost everything down again. The desire to have somewhere to tinker with model trains was too strong to contemplate that, but the issues still caused a lot of stress and unhappiness.

Nonetheless, there is a lot of melancholy and sadness involved when breaking down in a few days what took years to build. Instead of waxing lyrical, here are a few snapshots I took while progressing with the disassembly.

Track on one of the side sections being dismantled
The old turnaround and yard
The middle section, with buildings being stored for transport
A box full of sectional track...
... and a pile of flextrack after being removed from the layout
Some buildings still waiting to be safely packed

While I do not plan to reuse the table work for any future projects - it turns out that MDF really isn't the best material for these purposes - I will scavenge a few sections to build a temporary layout at my new place. I have enough space for a 2.4x1.2m (or 8x4ft, as timber here is still cut in imperial lengths) table - nowhere near as big as what I'm leaving behind, but big enough to allow for the running and storage of a few moderately long trains.

I've contemplated a few layout ideas and neded up with the below - a double oval with a small station and several sidings. This should allow for the running of two trains, and the sidings are about 1.2m long - enough to park some moderately long trains. Most of my trains won't be able to run in their full length, but at least I'll be able to both watch trains run, and continue my ongoing projects and explorations. Not much will happen on this layout in terms of full-scale landscaping, but I may have time to try out a few techniques such as static grass and ballasting.

Track plan
3D rendering

As always, watch this space.