I bought a Hornby East Coast Pullman DCC model train and Hornby Track Pack C set a couple of years ago, put it together in what was then the spare room and played with it for a few weeks watching the trains go around and around a circular track. The train set was very close to one I had when I was a child (a Tri-Ang set that I remember was played with a lot). I don’t know if it was nostalgia that prompted me to purchase it or not. Anyway, after a few weeks, I then put it away again in its box and did not touch it again. The box got moved around the house a bit, gathering dust, and occasionally I thought about putting it up on eBay, but that never happened.
Skip forward a few years and I had the idea to get the train set out again and set it up. I had some MDF panels that I laid out on the floor, connected up the track and set the trains running. It felt a bit lame, but I found I returned to it every day to look at it and think of the possibilities.
The next task I decided was to set up a table, so I bought myself some pine (19×75) and made a frame and glued and nailed a piece of 9mm A grade ply to the top. The legs I made out of 45×75 pine. The table is what I now know to be pretty standard 4′ x 8′ (1200 x 2400).
I went to my local model train store a couple of days after Christmas and it blew my mind with all the stuff you could get. I bought some track and electrical connectors and headed home to make an interesting (but still simple) layout
