This layout is just over 12 feet long - far too short for all the features I have squeezed in. Furthermore, it requires 7 locos, 4 coaches, 4 parcel vans and 48 wagons to operate - not all at the same time I admit, but still far more than is reasonable for such a small layout.

Therefore I cannot say that Strove is a model of an LNER branch terminus somewhere in East Anglia in the 1930s, nor is it merely a train set which was built on shelf brackets along one wall of my spare bedroom. It is, in fact, something which I enjoyed building on and off over a period of about four years as a change from my preferred allegiance to the LMSR.

Having exhibited the layout throughout the country since 2000, it is now time to retire it from the exhibition circuit and this will therefore be its last public appearance.