Well some progress has been made over Christmas. Holes had been cut in the plywood board before Christmas for the point motor operating rods, and also the uncoupling magnets. The board was then covered in 1/16 inch cork sheet, and the holes then cut through. The track was then assembled with the 7 points and the tracks that join them, this assembly of track has now been glued to the board. I also sprinkled ballast over the track while the glue was wet to get the first layer of ballast down.
So all the points are now laid, and the sidings are cut to length, however I have stopped there as it struck me that some of the sidings need to run into or around buildings, so it would be best to have the buildings in place before completing the track laying. Also the entry track needs to be laid from the first point to the fiddle-yard cassette lead-in in one piece, so I will have to do that with the fiddle yard present. Anyway I have since made a start on the station building and goods shed, this is inspired by the one at Wantage and includes a roof over the platform.
The photo above shows the progress so far (the facia board has been removed), the ballasted track is laid the rest is just placed down for now. The white area of the board at the rear left is the card base for the station and goods-shed, this sits in a cut-out area of the cork so the track is the same level, but will make constructing the building easier.
Also visible in the photo is the backscene. I cut triangles of foam-core board with an internal radius and stuck them into the corners of the layout, then cut a length of lining wallpaper (1000 grade) and stuck it to the back and ends of the layout and the inside of the foam-core fillets to make a continuous, smooth backscene around the layout. A second layer of lining paper was then stuck to the first, both layers using a spray-adhesive made by Bostick. The backscene is over 5 feet (close to 1.6 meters) long and 9 inches (23cm) high, now all it needs is to be painted sky colour. I have heard this can be done quite easily using household emulsion paint, so I will give it a go, unless I find a suitable commercial sky-paper first! Any suggestions let me know.
Next time I should have made some progress with the station building ...
Nothing to do with model railways this, but here are a couple of pictures of the timber that landed on the beaches near us recently. It came from the ship the "Ice Prince" which sank off Dorset, a hundred miles or so West of here, and came up the channel on the tide. If the pictures look impressive, remember they were taken a week after the timber was washed ashore, so the clear up operation had already moved most of it up the beach.
