O Gauge Layout progress.....

I have been a bit quiet on updating my blog recently, due to a variety of reasons. There is a lot of renovating on the house going on and this will continue for most of the summer, coupled with a change in my professional life.  This is all great news, as come winter I should have plenty of modelling time, which I am really looking forward too.  I have numerous kits stashed away to build and a number of locomotives that I really need to get around to detailing, however, I never have enough time!  So from November onwards the house will be largely finished and my work commitments will be significantly reduced, freeing up a lot of time to do other things in life.  We are about to knock out what is left of the kitchen, rip up the lounge and replace the diner and bathroom. However, before this all begins (and the mess that goes with it!) - I set up the layout in the lounge to really push forward on some of the detailing aspects. There were lots of little niggly thing I just needed to get sorted out before I pressed on with adding some of the detailing elements.  

So to start with the ballasting is all but finished (I have a couple of bits to tidy up today).  It was a longish job, but a little bit each evening soon saw completed. I took the opportunity to rectify a few areas of poorly running track in a couple of places whilst gluing in the ballast and everything now runs as it should - fantastic! The points are all free and I cleaned the track and test ran a few locomotives..... The Heljan class 03 was running like a bag of old spanners, so I gave the wheels a good clean and popped it on the track - it spluttered than ran straight off the baseboard onto the hard wooden floor. The class 03 It is a bit of mess now - so there will be a complete rebuild of this locomotive over summer - a very expensive mistake that one.

Completed ballast looking into the platform.

I have added a small crossing by the platform for people/road vehicles and glued this in.  This is just some wooden coffee stirrers and brass wire, suitably weathered.   I also used some fine sand to build up the ground level in a handful of places around the layout and this has been glued in.

Level crossing added at the end of the platform.

I had also been dithering about the tunnel and had made no progress with this. I completed a tunnel mouth last summer, but it is very big. However, I have now decided to bite the bullet and use this - so this has been glued in place.  It will need the scenery building up around it when I add in the backscene, but this can be dealt with, when the house renovations are complete. It just about fits across the baseboard - but it is a tight squeeze.

Tunnel mouth now in place.

On the quay side I have been building up the water level using coats of PVA glue - this is an attempt to even out what had become a very rough surface and provide a rippling effect for the application of some water gel. This has been largely successful, although there is more to go here, finishing this off. I will get one more coat of PVA on it today, alongside adding in some wooden posts on the quay side. These have been made and will be glued into place later today.

PVA glue drying off for what will be the quay side.  I really like this sort of scene - looking up at the trains as they come into the platform and edge along the estuary.

Lastly, the buildings for the layout really needed some progress. I recently completed the pub and have made a lot of progress on finishing off the dairy office. I have added the interior detail, popped in some lights, and added the roof. It is now just a question of a little more detailing of the doors and gluing these into place, adding some lead flashing to the roof, then weathering the down the tiles and finishing the guttering. This will be a job for over summer, when I can snatch a moment of modelling time in the evening.

Guttering being installed into the dairy office.

The interior lights really help bring this model to life.

So plenty of layout progress, even if it has been in fit and starts; I can now finally see this all coming together. Tomorrow morning I am packing down the layout for the next 2 months or so, whilst we move through the real life house building projects. In the mean time, I intend to build a couple of wagons and continue with the finishing/detailing of the buildings. I also have the Class 03 to rebuild and weather, alongside detailing the Dapol Class 122. In addition, the Class 25 just needs reassembling, then I can start on the detailing of the next locomotive. I have a Hymek, Warship and Western sat in my modelling boxes. It is really fantastic to now have an operational layout, although ideally I also need to get the fiddle yard sorted - being O gauge this will need to be a traverser, as handling these O gauge trains is somewhat tricky. However, I can see that by Christmas, I will have a layout that is largely finished, with a handful of O gauge trains detailed and some kit built rolling stock finished to play with - happy days!