The selfish hobby

Not much progress on 'Belstone' in the last month due to other commitments - work, family, voluntary organisations, that kind of stuff.  I managed to grab a couple of hours to sort out the wiring, which now uses heavy copper bus bars running the full length of the board, and a neat self-latching relay to switch the frogs on the diamond crossing - see the N Gauge Forum for full details on how I got this one to work.

Yesterday afternoon, after I had cut the grass, trimmed the hedge and pulled up about two thousand stinging nettles, I got out the modelling stuff and started constructing the largest single building on 'Belstone' - the combined station building and stationmaster's house, based on the very typical North British structure at Scotsgap Junction.  And I realised one of the reasons why I enjoy railway modelling so much.  It is the only thing in my life for which I am answerable to no-one else.  Not my customers (I run a car repair business), my wife (lovely though she is), the Government, or anyone else.  The only person I have to please is myself.  There is no pressure of any kind.  If it takes me the next ten years to construct this one building, it doesn't matter at all.  It is, in that sense, a very selfish hobby, but not in a bad way.

The station building is still at an early stage although already looking recognisably North British, so no photos yet.  Construction is the usual Plastikard, and very fiddly to put together, being quite a complicated little structure.

In other news, I finally joined the N Gauge Society, and as a result have a set of B&B magnetic couplers in the post to me as I write this.  If I can get them to work I can put in the electromagnets for the uncouplers, turn the baseboard the right way up again and start thinking about scenic construction.  That's after I have built a supporting frame for the baseboard and rebuilt the fiddle yard from my previous layout to suit the new one.