As we welcome in the new year, I’d like to extend my heartfelt wishes to all of you.

May your trains run smoothly, your scenery flourish, and your imagination soar as you continue building and modelling in the year ahead.

Here’s to more tracks, models, and memories made in 2025.

Happy New Year !

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A quick look back at 2024

Modelling-wise 2024 was a good year. Amazingly, I finished two layouts in one year.

This sounds great but it’s slightly misleading.

I started Redwell way back in September 2022 and finished it in August 2024. So only two years to build it 🙂

Bahnchen was finished in 2024 too, but it is only 28 x 18 cm so it wasn’t a big job ! Progress was rapid though, and I should try to learn from this and move things along more quickly.

I really did enjoy converting the little Eggar-Bahn locos to run on 6.5mm gauge. ‘Bashing’ seems to be my happy place.

The second half of 2024 was filled with various small builds: making wagons from coffee stirrers, a nice bogie wagon and a couple of O9 loco builds.

I visited lots of exhibitions including the strange experience of a model railway exhibition in a cathedral. However, I enjoyed the specialist narrow gauge exhibitions the most, particularly the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, Narrow Gauge at the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway and Narrow Gauge NOW (the name is daft but the exhibition is great!).

2024 marked 10 years of this blog. That anniversary snuck up and surprised me. Many thanks to everyone who visits, views and comments on this blog. It is a big motivator to keep me modelling.

My plans for 2025.

Not exactly plans, more of a loose direction:

• Focus on building a new layout and not get distracted by other modelling. It will be built on these bare baseboards and it will feature the three amigos.
• Go to more specialist narrow gauge exhibitions.
• Visit some real railways, probably preserved industrial or miniature railways.

Whatever you have planned, I hope 2025 is an excellent year for you and your trains 🙂