Old school…

The way a soft pencil moves over paper, smooth yet with a subtle feedback through the finger tips. Tracing lines from mind to reality, sketching out ideas almost without thinking, as if the act of creating marks is an intangible but integral part of the process…It was a hot day - sat in the partial shade with a cold (alcohol free) beer and Iain Rice’s ‘An Approach to Model Railway Layout Design - Finescale in Small Spaces’ was a pleasant way to spend some time and sit out the heat of the house. I’m not sure if it was the heat, the book or the beer but I felt an urge to do draft some layout ideas - and instead of reaching for the very iPad I’m typing this upon, I found an old school square paper note book (useful for scale) and a lovely soft pencil, free many years ago at a conference in my old life.I’ve always been drawn to the Devon branch-line to Hemyock. From my very first ‘solo’ project via plans in between this slightly obscure and untypical prototype keeps playing on loop in my…