Another week flies by and a bit more progress has been made on the layout over the weekend. The fiddle yard has been tacked down and the dropper feeds soldered to the underside of the track, although I have yet to attach it all to the powerbus. There are two medium sized electrofrog points in the fiddle yard that are operated by hand. In the end I settled on a 3 lane fiddle yard. It is big enough to hold a two coach train (minus locomotive which sites over the points!) or 2 car dmu, a 121 unit/spare locomotive and a short freight working. I am hoping this will be enough to keep the layout ticking over at an exhibition, where I ultimately hope this will head.
The very short 3 lane fiddle yard
Finally I have finished painting the back scene, which seemed to take ages. In the end a blast of matt white white from an aerosol did the job, to create an opaque finish. I have also made a lot of progress with painting the station. The main painting has been finished, although there is some detail to pick out here and there, such as the stairs leading to the station. Various shades of grey, green, black, concrete and rust were sprayed over the station, producing a very pleasing dappled colour to the concrete. I did wonder if it was too dark, but the photographs seem to show it slightly lighter than it appeared when painting it. Some of the platform will have some static grass applied to it, to depict a forlorn 1970s-1980s feel.
Overall view of the station
With the back scene finished I just need to finish scribing the cobbles (a tedious job!!) and then I can glue the main buildings down. The station in particular is key, as once this and provender store are glued in place I can make a start on the ballasting. The current plan is to finish the station this week and glue it down, to allow ballasting to start in earnest next week. The layout is on the verge of the exciting stuff happening, when it transforms from a empty baseboard into a layout - it feels like it has been a long time coming! However, the electrics seem pretty solid to me, so I am hoping it will have a long and trouble free life (famous last words!!!!!!)
View from the provender side
The steps leading to the station require a bit of painting by hand
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