Philden Street's New Chapter

Greetings from Brisbane! That's right, I've now moved and Philden Street Yard is about to begin a new chapter.

After 14 years of living on the Sunshine Coast, my wife and I find ourselves back living in Brisbane. The move was sudden and up until early May the idea alone was completely unexpected. However, Philden Street Yard has been carefully transported and is now occupying pride of place in our lounge room of all places.

The advantage of building a portable layout, is being able to take it with you when you move.

Even Bill the Puppet has made the trip to Brisbane!

The big advantage of building a layout to be portable, is that it can always come with you should you move! P.S.Y. was built to take to exhibitions, and as such, it came apart in 7 sections and fitted into the back of our Mitsi as one of the many trips we made south down the Bruce Highway.

Waiting at the other end on the northside of Brisbane was a newly renovated 2 bedroom apartment with partial city views, a new life as empty-nesters, and for the first time in 30 years a spare bedroom that was to become my model train room slash office. However, at 3.3 metres long, my Philden Street Yard layout wouldn't fit along the longest wall without blocking the entry or preventing the wardrobe doors from opening. So the train room idea was soon scuttled. The compromise was to reconfigure my layout as an entertainment unit in the lounge room, with the TV positioned beneath it and my layout's IKEA furniture turned into a lounge room display cabinet with family photos. I also added some display lighting and commandeered two shelves to display my model locomotives on.

The benchwork I built slots together with just 7 bolts and wingnuts...

Once the benchwork is freestanding, the two modules just sit back on top.

I'll add some stick-on wire organisers to stop them drooping below the benchwork.

A quick test of a locomotive on the track revealed all was well, and the layout was effectively settled into its' new environs within the hour of being walked through the front door. It was a great practice run for what it will be like when taking P.S.Y. to some model train exhibitions next year. That was the easy part, and that was also a little over a month ago.

Flashback to May, and after writing my last entry post Brisbane Model Train Show, a lot has changed. A LOT! To the point where I deleted my last blog entry and just needed some time away from the blog. It seems that my sharing concerns about the cost of exhibiting a layout was like poking a stick at a beehive once shared to social media. While some agreed with me, others branded my view as selfish and not supporting of the hobby... go figure what you'd like of that. After spending the morning of my 50th Birthday getting help with dissolving a small business I had run for the past 7 years, not being able to find nor afford any rental accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, not knowing where we were going to live 2 weeks out from our lease expiring and having to cancel my 50th Birthday trip to Uluru, there's always a handful of people who seem to have all the answers. Mentally, I just needed a break, from everything.

So, now I find myself again living in Brisbane, and strangely falling back into the bracket of full-time writer. It's a weird outcome to a year where (back in February) we thought we'd be taking a few months off after our daughter's wedding in August to travel Australia. 2022... like 2021 and 2020, is a year where plans can change in the blink of an eye. So I guess a new chapter is also a new start for my blog, and whatever direction I'd like to steer it in. Once I'm finished fighting with IKEA furniture and unpacking, there's a few little side projects to my books that I need to bring up to speed before I can turn the attention back to my layout/layouts.

Moving day! And the layout assumes its place in our new apartment.

On the other side of our Sunshine Coast exit, Denise and I are enjoying furnishing the apartment with some new furniture, and settling into our new life. The main concern with the layout having to be the feature of our loungeroom however is the staging yard. In a nutshell, although my wife knows what it is and why it's necessary, I have to agree with her in that every visitor to our place is going to ask when I am going to finish the other half of the layout. So the challenge is now on to fashion a small micro layout or just a cameo display case that will stand above the rear staging tracks and align with the top of Philden Street Yard's lid to make the wall look complete. It's another small project for me to look forward to alongside my Queensland themed Philden Creek layout.

But as usual, I'll let that be a story for another day. Tune in next time, when I bring you up to speed with some exciting new aquisitions, and news of what's in store for P.S.Y. for the remainder of this year!