This last six or so months has seen Gordon and I finishing the trolleys, checking they fit in a Luton van (as we will use to transport them to exhibition) and finishing work on the BLI USRA Mikado conversions to CNJ M3 Miikados. A lot of hopper cars have also been completed, ready now to be weathered and loaded. Finally, work is now starting on building a working signal gantry for the west end of the layout.

These first five photos show the trolley purpose built for the storage yard. All five 3ft x 4ft boards fit into grooves in it and when the ends are both closed, are secure for transport. The unloaded trolley folds up into a small space – first photo.

Once all the scenic and storage yards boards are packed into their trolleys and, the end boards are folded into each other, they were stacked into a space the size of a Luton van to make sure we could transport the layout to exhibition. Here are two photos showing the ‘stacked van’! Not very exciting but very important. Finally we reassembled the layout in a couple of hours (well, almost).