The Negotiation, Deal and Shed Preperation

After a few days Brendan got back in touch and said that he thought that a Burlington Northern take over of the D&H was probably a good idea and that we should work out a deal. So over the next few days we figured out what he wanted to sell and what I wanted to buy and we reached an agreement that would see the D&H relocated to my shed.
Oh crap, now I have a deadline! We wanted to move the layout only once, so working back from Brendan's house settlement date, I figured I'd have about 6 weeks to get the shed sorted. So for the next 6 weeks, every spare moment that I had was spent on fitting out the shed.
The electrical wiring needed to be installed and connected, the concrete slab needed sealing, then I needed to put in stud walls and a ceiling.

The entire shed would need a stud frame wall built within the existing shed walls

The walls were insulated with r4 batts and were covered in 9mm mdf

A false ceiling was then in installed and insulated with r4 batts, the panel lifter from the bunnings hire shop made it so easy!

Almost done! In all it took around seven weeks, but that worked out well. As I was preparing the shed, Brendan had begun the massive job of packing up the trains as well as doing some preliminary dis-assembly. 

This last bit of stud framed wall needed to be removable until after the layout was installed. We were pretty certain that almost everything would come through the access door, but the internal walls that made up the peninsulas were most likely going to have to come through that part of the shed wall.

The back story

Just before xmas 2014, I had my new 9x6 metre shed (train room) erected in the back yard. Within these 4 walls I was going to create an as yet unplanned N scale empire. If you look closely at the center of the shed you can see that I was keen to get started.

Whilst this was being built I was keenly following the progress of another similar sized N scale railroad which was located just a short drive away. (dh2ndsub.blogspot.com.au). Brendan, the owner of the D&H 2ndsub was blazing ahead, building pretty much the layout that I had wanted to build. I had already decided that I wanted to use a floor plan that closely matched his. As far as I was concerned his plan was a very efficient use of space that allowed for some very good mainline runs, great switching and good distances between towns. 

Anyway work got in the way of doing anything much, then sometime in March whilst sitting in a hotel room on the other side of the planet I received a shocking email form Brendan saying that he had unexpectedly received an offer to buy his house that was to good to say no to and that the railroad would have to be pulled apart. The shock was that his house wasn't on the market! This bought about a shocked outcry from the people who had operated on the D&H and were expecting to see it become a great model railroad. Personally I thought he'd been spending to much time with the MEK solvent as it was to early for an April fools day prank, but no, this was the real deal, sadly the D&H was soon to be pulled apart.

Then sometime in early April myself and Brendan drove over to the other side of the city for an operating session on Rod Warren's amazing "Santa Fe Railway Southern Division" (santafesd40.blogspot.com.au). During that drive Brendan explained that the new layout room would be a completely different shape/size and that very little of the existing railroad if any would find it's way into the new room.

Then a few days later I realised that my shed and Brendan's soon to be old shed were almost the same dimensions, an idea was born!! Maybe, just maybe the Burlington Northern could acquire the about to abandoned right of way, at the very least the idea of an acquisition should be explored. After seeking approval of this idea from my wife (and getting it) I called Brendan and briefly explained it him, he was surprised but didn't dismiss the idea, rather he said he'd think about it a get back to me in a few days. There was hope!!