No. 1 (and only) son Michael dropped in on Thursday to do a little track planning.  He’s got a couple of Peco Settrack boxes to run his trains on at home, and has now relieved Derek of one of his spare 4′ x 2′ modules.  So what could we do to use up the sectional track and have an interesting layout?

Having pushed things around a spare sheet of plywood, one idea was this.

It’s a bit American in design, with the loop at one end of the board.  But it does give somewhere to use up the 1st radius curves.  These won’t be a problem as Michael has mainly small locomotives.  The sidings at the top will mainly be for locomotives, and those below for trains.  There’s enough room for a little scenery, if so desired, and gives somewhere to test run some trains.

We’ll think about the design, but I might have to do a little tracklaying.  Fortunately, I think that I have enough Peco points and track in stock to fill in the gaps between Michael’s track items.  I’m sure that it won’t end up like this, but we’ve made a start.

And here’s something similar, USA style.  9′ x 4′ so a little larger in HO.  But it shows how good the USA is at building good looking small layouts.