Christmas comes but once a year

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. As would be expected, Christmas 2011 gave Isaac and his brother have had some additions to their railway set. An engine shed, turntable and tunnel on Christmas day and a workshop and new train on boxing day. Today's post is the layout Isaac put together on Boxing Day morning, before he got the presents for that day.

It started, of course, with the new additions to the set. The engine shed was felt to be a superior siding, but later another one was added for the train with the black engine, Isaac and his brother call this train Old Puffer Pete. For those of you familiar with Chuggington you'll understand. The turntable and tunnel were added in quick succession and then the serious layout building began.

Isaac started off with the two interconnecting loops. It was quite a nice arrangement that allowed the trains to come out of the engine shed and enter the first loop straight ahead. This loop then swung round and the trains crossed the turntable from another direction. They then proceeded round the broader loop and crossed the turntable third time and ended up back at the engine shed. It was all very neat, but also said something about the way the turntable was viewed. Rather than a device to turn locomotives and roiling stock round it was used much more a method of switching the direction of the track.

Isaac quickly realised that this layout out some limitations. The main one being he and his brother were often in conflict about the direction of the turn table. He then proceeded to build a third loop which became a wonderfully complex arrangement with a siding, crossover and bridge. This extra track solved most of the conflict, or at least spaced them out.

I'm sure over the coming days even more interesting layouts will be devised. Especially as the possibilties of the new track and buildings are realised.