DISMANTLING COLCESTER...!!!

So, it begins...

The start was made in early September into October of clearing the contents of the Colcester Shed and storing all the Rolling Stock, Locomotives and scenic items in our second shed. Once this had been completed a start was made on removing parts of the Colcester layout itself.

This has basically involved removing large areas of the scenics such as buildings, bridges and stations.

Furman Smithy station has been completely removed with its platform sections kept intact so they can be reused in the new plan. The Depot Road bridge and its supporting walls have also been taken down and the plan here is to continue along the embankment between the upper and lower levels, and to remove the Colcester Lower Level Crossing hopefully intact so it too can be reused as this was allowed for in the new plan.

There are even bigger steps to come... firstly access into the Colcester Shed will be greatly improved as the section of layout board across the entrance door will be removed so that the new framework for the new plan can be implemented.

The new Colcester Plan has been designed to have a self-contained end 2 end layout which changes to a tailchaser layout once the garden extension comes into play. The redesign achieves this by still using two levels however the gradient between these levels will be split with a level section in the middle. This is hoped to give the trains a much better run up to the upper level rather than having to try to climb up one long gradient in one go.

DONT FORGET TO KEEP FOLLOWING THE NEW LAYOUT PAGES FOR FURTHER UPDATES