Rescuing an old project - Pottington Quay

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog - time has a habitat of running away with itself.  I have been modelling, although mainly in O gauge, but this has been in fits in starts.  This is primarily dues to us having finally moved home to North Devon, delayed for just over 2 years by covid, best laid plans and all that. It has been a hectic time for us both, with endless packing, unpacking, driving and the like, but finally it is all done and dusted, we are home, the long term storage unit has been emptied and life is good and happy again. This brings me to the subject of this blog post, my old layout that has been in storage. About 5 years ago I was posting on my blog about building Pottington Quay, the next step in my 00 gauge modelling. Since that point I have built, what I would call my first proper working layout (Charlton - now sold on) and had moved onto my next project - the O gauge layout. In all aspects of modelling, but especially layout construction, my skills have really developed and improved, to the point where I am now quite confident about to build a durable, working model railway.

The old layout Pottington Quay, now out of storage and sat in the new modelling room.

So taking out this older layout, my initial intention was to throw it away, after breaking it up.  However, after some reflection and some suggestions by 'the other half', I decided that maybe I might have a go at resurrecting it.  A lot of the hard work has been done, putting down the track, building and painting thet the platform (which is quite good), scribing of clay for the quay walls and cobbling, etc etc.  In fact, whilst the quality of the modelling can be improved in all areas, I think it will be a fun challenge to sit down and start upgrading this layout.  My other half said she might help to do some of the scenery, which would be a wonderful thing to do together.

Platform above the quay wall.

Part of the older quay wall, reminiscent of the quay side at Bideford.

The first job will be checking the electrics are all sound.  The soldering on this is not great, so I do need to double check it.  After this, the point motors need replacing and microswitches for the electro frogs need adding. I can remember when using the layout the old switches on the SEEP motors were not working correctly.  In a a pique of enthusiasm (and pay day), I ordered the micro switches and point motors, CDU power supply, etc.  I also need to add a lighting pelmet across the front of the layout. After sorting out the electrics, I am going to add a little more bracing to the baseboards, before giving the layout a jolly good clean, maybe tidying/trimming some of the track, before adding in buildings, repainting the quay wall, etc. I think I have most of the buildings for the layout, although I might construct a few.  I am sure the addition of a backscene will also be transformative.  So I am hopefully this will be a relatively quick project to get going with over summer. The size of the board means it is relatively easy to move into the lounge, so I can work on this whilst my other half watches TV! I am going to work on both this and my O gauge layout together, so I should have somewhere to run my OO gauge stock reasonably soon.