It's fitting that the first post in our revamped ‘News’ section is about new beginnings in the place we call home. Having somehow squeezed a showroom, an office, a growing team, multiple dogs and thousands of model trains into two large rooms for nine years, we’re finally spreading our wings. But not too far… 

For the last 18 months, we’ve watched a derelict pub across the road gradually transform into a beautiful new office space. Full of character, we’d earmarked it from the start as the perfect hub for an ECT nerve centre – and last weekend, we excitedly collected the keys. Spatial reasoning combined with raw muscle power as desks, computers, bookshelves, boxes and an entire layout crossed the divide…with a substantial online shopping basket of ‘accessories’ arriving daily to complete the picture.

It’s an expansion as opposed to a move; our showroom and office will stay put, as will the models. So if you’re visiting us, it’s business as usual. But the new digs enable our research, design and marketing spooks to do their thing beneath the exposed beams and sash windows of their own HQ. It also provides a quiet workspace for those needing to escape the throng for an hour or two. It’ll house our library and testing facility as well as (eventually) a couple of professionally built ‘cameo’ layouts, where we’ll be able to showcase our products. 

The move has created welcome breathing space in our showroom/office. So there’ll be much more room to efficiently dispatch hundreds of train-filled packages each week – as well as to store and process more trains! This in turn will feed through to the showroom’s appearance, which will far less often resemble a warehouse (we’ve got one of those, too…) and realize its potential as a relaxing space to browse and purchase our huge selection of new and pre-owned models. 

We grabbed a few snaps of the day’s action as it unfolded:

"Now pay attention, everyone!"

There's a layout under there somewhere...

When Ellis gets his duster out, there's just no reasoning with the man...

Keith has discovered our shrink ray. He's about to become 76 times smaller.

All's well that ends well!