Time for a change - relocation of layout

The great clash of hobbies drives change

Its been a while since I updated this blog. Since my last update I added a hobby to my already packed schedule in a 1972 Mach 1 Mustang. 

This has taken up a heap of time over the last 12 months in getting it roadworthy etc and therefore the Model Railway hobby has taken a back seat. I also struggled to get my head around a schedule / time table and car cards etc so lost a bit of interest for a while.

Adding to this Sam turned 18 this month and therefore, he is now using Michelle's 14yr old Hyundai i30 and this lead to the need to get Michelle a new car. This has then had a knock on effect in that garage space has become a premium where the Mustang MUST live in the garage to minimise rust issues for the 50yr old Mustang and Michelle wants to be able to store her new car in the garage and not get hot in the summer and her to get wet in the winter when using it.

As the railway room was built in half the garage, I have made the decision to move the layout out of the garage and reclaim the space for cars. This then lead to a search for a shed that I can install the layout. As the current layout uses 6m x 3m of the garage, I needed to find a similar size space to be able to reuse as much of the current layout as I can.

I found a solution. A moveable building / box that is insulated. This way, if we move in the future, I can just pick up the layout and building a move it.

The cost of building a garage and then fitting it out was going to be prohibitive. In terms of council, I found that moveable buildings that are not used as habitable space can be installed with out a permit as long as they don't have footings etc. The council also does not allow for containers to be installed in residential areas for longer than 3 months, so that was out of the question also.

Here is the solution.

Here is the shed being transported on a tilt tray.

The walls are fully insulated as is the roof.

While the top and bottom corners have eyelets like a container to pick it up etc, it is not a container or a converted container.

I do not want to drill holes in the steel / aluminium walls so plan on moving from a double deck to a single deck approach for the layout.

Here is a revised design for the layout.

The location of the duck under / drop bridge needs to move.

I have started to disassemble the layout by removing the fascia, signals and buildings.

Next to get the saw out and do some cutting once I have added power to the new shed.

Stay tuned..