Agent of chaos

Originally posted 26/2/2010


Thanks to a spiteful letting agent and practises which would probably be illegal in Britain (and if I'd not been in a fixed term contract, would be illegal here), I will become temporarily homeless this weekend. For how long I don't know, I'm determined to find a better quality house this time (which actually has insulation and draught proofing) and I'm comitted to a month in a temporary solution, a serviced apartment. That may sound a bit dramatic, but it's legally true. As such, I've had to dismantle Steinruecken and it goes into store this weekend. At least I'd got to running some trains before taking it down.

Bad Horn is now up at the Marklin Model Railway Club rooms, which will enable me to carry on working on it. I've been invited to exhibit it at RailEx (Wellington, not Aylesbury!), so I've got to get it really presentable. It's not bad at this point compared to other layouts on the local scene, but I want to make an impression. At this point I'm making lots of trees, and I need to make some ultra low relief buildings too. At least this is work which can be done at a dining table.

Packing away all my stuff reminded me how unfocussed I can be. Aside from a concise set of 70s/80s DB branch line stock, there aren't any sets that allow complete operation of a layout. The trouble is, everything has an ultimate goal and/or reason for its initial purpose, so getting motivated to rationalise is very hard. At this point, I have...

• 00 1960s BR(M) stock - a legacy of being a member of the Mid Cheshire MRS who had an excellent ex L&Y/Cheshire Lines layout.
• H0 DBAG 2001 fleet - ever growing, for Steinruecken
• H0 DB 1970s/80s. Essentially a complete set, some wagons overlap with the 2001 fleet. Only planned addition will be some scale length Silberlinge, and I haven't decided which brand (Piko, Roco or Lima/Rivarossi) to buy yet.
• Circa 1990 BR stock for a Weymouth scenario. Slowly progressing EMUs, a few locos, coaches and civils wagons.
• A small amount of German N, generally aiming towards contemporary scene. I wish I could bring myself to flog it, but the urge to do some scenic modelling somehow persuades me to hang onto it.
• Scattergun H0e with an unintentional Austrian bias. Half the locos don't work, and the coaches catch the point motors on the layout. Disheartening, and low resale value owing to mods and condition. Originally Steinruecken was intended to have some Ruegensche Kleinbahn tracks on it, but then I saw the price of the appropriate Bemo locomotives!
• Shrinking TT collection, mostly Berliner. I've sold a lot of it, but I'm keeping others for a "one day" Furth im Wald layout, and indeed recently obtained a Piko Alex ER20- soon to be historical with the DB buyout of Arriva?
• A few bits of 0 gauge, with a Forest of Dean diesels focus. In store in England.
• A G scale GP7 with value decreased by a repaint. In store in England.

So yeah. I'm hopeless. I have grand ideas of "five year plans" with continual small layout projects alongside a longer term larger project. Trouble is, I have two small layouts at this point as well as Steinruecken (well, three if you include one on long term loan to a friend in England) rather than doing just one at a time. And at this moment, I've got to really keep focussed and not get distracted by side projects, taking only "essential" modelling with me while the rest gets stored, hopefully only for a month or so.