The old apple tree was cut down yesterday and the garden is now starting to look like a blank canvas. There's still a lot of work to do before any track-laying starts, but we're now at the stage where I was planning to be by the end of May, so I'm pleased with the way things have gone.
The next job will be to re-position a few paving slabs and then I can start building the walls for the new bed that the railway will run through. With this in mind, I've been messing about with some track in the industrial sidings area (most likely a timber mill).
I've managed to come up with a formation that will allow the sidings to be shunted (at least with 4 wheeled wagons) without interferring with the mainline. Therefore, I'm thinking of controlling these sidings seperately so that they can be shunted while a train runs around the continuous run.
Trains will always approach the sidings in an anti-clockwise direction on the mainline. They will then be propelled into the right-hand reception siding. The loco (usually the Piko V60) will then uncouple and re-join the mainline to run light engine back to Gooey Shed. The duty shunting engine will then take one truck at a time to the loading/unloading dock on the left-hand siding (the head shunt allows this to be done without fouling the mainline). When it's been unloaded (the logs will sit on a seperate false floor so that they can just be lifted off), the shunter will position the empty wagon in the centre siding before returning to the reception siding for another loaded one.
Wagons for cut wood will arrive empty ready for loading on the left-hand siding.
The small Flowering Almond tree is a useful marker as the sidings can't extend pass it - this allows room for the new Welshpool narrows section.