I’m still fettling point blades for the Minories, but I thought that I needed a diversion.

You may recall that I got Kuritu up and running during the first lockdown last year….

I then ran into the problem that a 6′ x 2′ layout is really just too big for my loft – and to fit Minories and my American layout in as well.  (Help, my loft is beginning to look like Paul’s lounge or Mr Atfield’s house.)  Further, getting this lump of a layout out of the loft and to an exhibition would be just too difficult.

I began to wonder whether to rebuild it, and save my favourite bits on a smaller layout.  So I carried out some radius trials with Peco track.  My trams happily went around curves of about 120mm – 150mm, similar to Tomix and Kato tram track radii.

So I took the bull by the proverbials.  I had always far preferred the narrow, urban, side of the layout to the rural one with the tram sheds.  I stripped all the usable scenics off the rural side, then put a saw down the middle of the layout, leaving the city street intact.

So far so good.  I could then make a smallish 4′, 5′ or 6′ x 10″ wide layout, perhaps with a fiddle yard at each end.  However, I rather liked the idea of a roundy-roundy line, like the original Kuritu.  And frankly, although the scenics still look good, the baseboard was getting a little tired.

So, back to the drawing board, and a little design later I came up with this layout.  1000mm x 400mm, using some Peco Setrack points that I had around.  The curves at the end of the layout are about 150mm.

I like this design a lot – I can run 3 or 4 trams on it – and it could be DC or DCC.  There will be room for most, if not all the buildings from Kuritu, though I shall have to redo the road system and pavements.

And as of this evening, here’s the baseboard nearly complete.  Mostly odds and ends of 6mm ply that was around the loft.  I’m hoping that the board doesn’t warp – I built it on the floor and screwed the board to the loft floor to keep it flat.

If all’s well, I have material for some legs for it, a lick of paint, and we can lay the track.

Meanwhile, Martin is making good progress with his new layout, though he seems to have got a little distracted in planning the scenery and playing with the containers!