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Sunday, 24 June 2018

Charlton layout - further progress

This week has seen some further progress on the layout.  As always there has been less time than I anticipated, but life always finds something to keep you busy!  Anyhow, a lot of those little jobs have been finished off.  The fiddle yard has been wired up so it is operational.  There is one more one more siding to add to the fiddle yard, but this is a relatively small job to solder this last one up.  The casing for the fiddle yard still needs to be finished, as this has only been partially completed.  However, the fiddle yard is now operation and can easily hold a 3 coach train plus locomotive in the longest siding, which will make operating the layout much easier.  The four roads in the fiddle yard will be able to hold a 3 coach plus locomotive formation, a 3 car DMU plus 1 car DMU, and two freight trains in the other two roads, a mixture of parcels, milk, china clay and of course an engineers working!

New fiddle yard, with three of the four sidings are now operational.

The fiddle yard can now easily hold a 3 coach train plus locomotive.

The tunnel entrance towards the fiddle yard has been glued down and the backscene partially painted.  The landscaping around the tunnel has been started using some paper mache, with the plaster bandage to be added over this today.  This new track has also been painted and ballasted, with the landscaping on this end of the layout starting today in earnest.

The tunnel entrance towards the fiddle yard is starting to take shape.

General view towards the fiddle yard.

The cobbled area around the provender store and old warehouse is taking a bit longer to finish.  I can't quite seem to get the balance right with the painting.  So attached are a couple of photos of how it looks at the moment.  An awful lot of mind numbing scribing went into this area, so I would like to get the balance of this right and really bring out the detail.  There are a couple more coats of paint to add to this today.   

Cobbled area, which still requires some more painting.

The cobbled area with a little bit of dry brushing across the bottom.  I am not happy with the appearance this at the moment.

Other jobs in progress are the scribing of a wall behind the signal box, which will eventually head towards the tunnel, and adding more static grass.  A lot of refining of this needs to happen around the trackwork and along the platforms.  The front of the layout needs some hedges and fences to be added as well.  However, there is a little bit of momentum with the layout detailing at the moment.  Maybe a June finish date was a little optimistic, however, it is all heading in the right direction.  

General shot of the layout as it currently is looking towards the fiddle yard.

The terminus end of the layout, showing the carpark and terraced houses.

View towards the terminus end during a test run.

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