Enter 2003. This overview is from April 2003. As you can see a lot has changed especially in the background. The Dovre staging area is complete with scenery. The factory area has some scenery work done.

Not visible but very important, the Trondheim staging area was completely redone. The old staging area was a four track and the tracks were laid with re-used old brass Roco track and turnouts from my childhood. The brass track was causing a lot of problems and also the four tracks weren't enough.
The new Trondheim staging area has five tracks and is built using Roco line track (code 83 without roadbed). It also includes a turntable (by Atlas).

With a little bit more room than in the Netherlands I could extend my layout a little bit. I always liked to idea of staging yards. After a lot of thinking and drawing I came to the conclusion that a helix would do the trick. The helix would lead to two staging yards. One staging yard will represent the North of Dombås (in the direction of Trondheim), this staging yard has been named "Trondheim". The other staging yard, which hasn't been built yet, will serve as an Åndalsnes replacement. On top of the helix and the "Trondheim" staging yard I could build a reversing loop to represent the south of Dombås, the look has been named "Dovre", a city south of Dombås.

This picture shows the helix during its construction in the spring of 2000.

Then in the summer of 2003 the whole layout was broken up. We installed new windows in our house and the layout was blocking access to the window. Again here shows the benefits of using a modular design. The helix was too big to fit through the door so it was moved about a meter (3ft) to get access to the windows in the layout room.

After the windows were installed the whole layout was put back up again. This picture taken on the first day of 2004 shows the current situation. There hasn't been much progress on the scenery. Mainly some techinical items were changed and fixed. Right now I'm doing a lot of operating sessions, something I really enjoy.

The layout in the state of 2004, described in the way the US modelrailroad press is typically doing: The Dombås layout at a glance.

Seven years after its original publication, an updated article about the layout was published in the February 2004 issue of the Dutch modeltrain magazine Railhobby.

In the summer of 2005 the Dombås layout was dismantled because after a seven year stay in Lisle we moved to San Jose in California. Again the module concept was very helpful when moving it again. The modules went into storage while waiting for a new house.
This picture shows the room without a layout.