Light duties

About three weeks ago I had to have an operation, which means I'll be recovering for a few weeks. However over the last week since being back home I have started some modelling - having lined up some easy tasks that would not be physically taxing.

First up was some wagon kits - three of the recent 009 society kits, two wooden bodied opens and a flat/bolster wagon, to join the iron sided wagon I built already. These are nice easy kits for relatively small freelance wagons with good proportions, so I will look out for some more of them. I've also made a batch of couplings and fitted them to all 4 wagons, plus to the digger wagon.

Another easy job was the scribing of stonework for the walls around Hexworthy. This just uses a pencil in the styrofoam. Photos of stonework in the area and the actual bridge were used to get the right style as best I can.

Here's one of the river bank retaining walls in place, with the wall to the road in the distance.

The bridge and wall to the road, the stonework is larger in the bridge walls.

At the other end of the layout is this small culvert over a stream. I'll have to get the paints out to complete these walls.

Before the op I'd cut platforms from 3mm foam-board, marked out from a paper template. I think the platform surface should be paved around the station building, but I'm not sure how to go about this best. I'm considering individual plastic paving slabs but I'm not sure on the size, or pattern. Here I've cut large slabs 3' x 2' (12mm x 8mm) - the same size as the pavement in our street - and smaller ones 2' x 18" (8mm x 6mm). The smaller ones probably look better though would be more tedious to lay, but the bigger ones work better along the platform edge where I expect a substantial paving slab would be required. I guess they go length-ways along the edge, but which way to lay them over the rest of the platform?