Because things have been busier, I have not had a chance to do any work on the layout. However, before COVID-19 arrived here in New Zealand, I was fortunate to host about 10 members of the Southland Society of Model Engineers. Their club is based in Invercargill, about 45 minutes drive from where I live. They have a nice club layout at their clubrooms and many of the members have layouts as well. You can find them on Facebook here. They're a great bunch, so after the COVID-19 lockdown, look them up and say hello.
It was great that everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Some made themselves busy finding the figures and scenes listed on the layout "where's Wally" scavenger hunt list. Others took some time to railfan the various trains running. On the day the layout seemed to behave itself and I was pleased the only derailment was caused by me not paying attention and running the wrong way through a switch.
While the layout has hosted visitors before, I've never had more than a couple of people at a time. So this was the largest number I've fitted in the garage. Luckily, it was a reasonable day so I opened up the main garage door and also moved the car out. To help with capacity in the narrow aisle, I had bench set up on the other side of the room with a photo book featuring the layout construction and a slideshow with photos of my Dad's 28mm wargaming figures on his dioramas. So people had things to look at if they couldn't find a spot around the layout.
It's always good fun to share the layout, especially with such a great bunch of people.
Many thanks to Greg Fordyce for the photos.
