A Model Railway Revisited #16

It is nearly seven years since I built this layout. 

There is no room anywhere here (house or garage) to set it up permanently, being set up and operated only on warm summers day in the garden. For most of the year the two scenic baseboards are stored on a shelf system and supported by two brackets each (in the railway room, aka garage) - and therein lies a problem.

When I set it up this summer I discovered that both boards had warped a bit (sunk between shelf brackets) requiring the far ends to be raised up to ensure some semblance of a flat surface for operations. 

The baseboards are foam insulation board with 5mm thick hardboard panels glued to the sides for rigidity. The odd thing is these had not come adrift nor cracked.

What I did to correct the warp was to rest each baseboard on a flat floor with heavy weights laid on top at the ends and left them for a month. This did a fair job of correcting the warp. I then bought some aluminium angle bracket and screwed it to the sides with a view to combating any future warp. I have also added  shelves to the brackets on which the baseboards are stored.

These photographs show that the layout has been temporarily brought inside the house and set up on my desk, although there is no room to include the separate fiddle yard.

The reason for this is that there are murmurings of an exhibition invitation for next year for which the layout is presently missing scenic details (as alluded to in Part 15). So, time for me to get modelling again.

To Part 1.