New Year update

Since another year is upon us, I decided to take some new photos of the layout. Comparing with those in the blog from a year ago, I realize that I have made some progress after all, although perhaps not as much as I would have liked.

First off, here are three photos of the layout itself. Little work has been done on the buildings since the Nottingham exhibition in March - only construction of the small waiting shelter on the down platform. However, the overall scenery has progressed rather more. Track is now ballasted and painted. I've made a start on the basic ground cover, although there is much to do. I had a go at painting the backscene (in acrylics) and I'm reasonably happy with it, although it will probably need some modification once the final colouring of the actual scenery is set. The lighting has also advanced since the Nottingham show, although it is not obvious here - in fact, an LED strip from https://www.led-lighthouse.co.uk/ has now replaced the IKEA fluorescent strip.

The next two photos show four Highland wagons that I finished off during 2015. I was surprised but happy that they won the John Barker trophy at the 2mm AGM in October. The top two are diagram 6 opens while the bottom two are diagram 23 drop-side ballast wagons. All of the bodies were scratchbuilt in styrene (and I have an accompanying box of failed attempts!) The chassis were cobbled together from 2mm Association parts and don't bear close inspection. For future wagons, I am experimenting with etching more accurate chassis, so watch this space.