Into a New Era

Ready for a new era on The Philden Model Railway Blog.

It is time to usher in a new era on The Philden Model Railway Blog. Since starting this blog back in May 2015, this site has always been undergoing constant improvement, much like my modelling skills. However, after the release of my final model railway book it was beginning to feel like I had taken The Philden Model Railway Blog as far as I could.

Apart from the occasional banner change, the original Philden Model Railway Blog had become constricted within the size of the framework it had kept over the past decade.

The new Philden Model Railway Blog uses a wider frame that provides breathe room for enhanced features and is size adaptive for the growing number of viewers using mobile devices.

Having recently completed full-time study in photography and gaining a Certificate III in Visual Arts for my efforts, I've been hitting the web hard with job applications and sounding out prospects in the hope of expanding upon a career as a self-published author. Sometimes however, a new project collaboration presents itself as a great alternative in the meanwhile.

Phillcreations is a newly formed collaboration that I have been quietly overseeing behind the scenes. It enables me to separate my past writing under the name of Phillip Overton along with my model train interests, from my photography, content creation and other project collaborations as I move forward.

This was important so that someone searching for my books and model train exploits wasn't going to be inundated with photography and vice versa.

The Phillcreations site will act as an umbrella landing page for these collected interests as they further develop. This eliminates the need for multiple websites while providing the ability to draw upon the skillsets of other creative types should something fall outside my area of expertise. My Philli O Photography page is now featured on the site and will provide ongoing content alongside other creative collaborations as they each launch soon.

Following its launch, both The Philden Model Railway Blog and my original Author website Phillip Overton were this week given a complete makeover by the team behind Phillcreations. I don't know what readers initial thoughts are, but the before and after screenshots of this blog are nothing short of amazing! And if you want to be treated to an image of what I looked like back in my prime in 2007, then be sure to check out my author blog here.

I can now enjoy a new era of simply logging-in to write a post update on my layouts, knowing that I have some experts at hand to help with the behind-the-scenes stuff. Which hopefully means some more time for modelling...

As for the future of The Philden Model Railway Blog, the team's plan is to grow the site through collaborations with other like-minded modellers and industry types from around the world. At the end of the day, anyone working a business full-time needs it to be profitable, and after a decade of producing books and sharing my hobby here for free, I'm keen to see how those two ideologies can successfully coexist. I guess stay tuned to see what that looks like.

Until next time...