The Easter holidays are here, and a break from the constant round of planning, marking, teaching and assessing student teachers. A chance to spend some time with the family and catch up with some modelling. Here is the latest update....

The layout

Despite the granting of planning permission for the extension to Skaleby West, and the placing of an order for the wood, there has been no physical progress as regards the second scenic board. That does not mean things have been at a standstill however. The early part of the Easter break has seen me tackling a few more jobs on the orginal board.

Some of the scenics for Skaleby West were completed in a rush, in order to get the job done for last year's show. The buildings, with the exception of the cottage, were simply placed onto the layout with no additional detailing. They served their purpose, but I always felt that the Skaledale signal box looked a little too clean and fresh out of the box. So on Easter Monday, whilst watching the Rams record their ninth successive win over Leeds on Sky tv, I set about the model with the weathering powders. This was a little nerve wracking as the only item I had previously weathered was the station's red telephone box. Initially I used some "brown muck" and dry brushed this down the cream top of the 'box, ensuring the powders were worked into the corners and the recesses between each "plank of wood". The same colour was then dry brushed over the brick work, and lightly over the roof. Quite a bit of the powder did fall onto the cinder ground cover. I brushed this into the scatter material and it does seem to blend in like a "sandy soil". I am not sure yet whether to leave this or re-cover it with fresh scatter material as I am not sure about how effective the current look is.

Once I had finished the brown I added a dry brush covering of "black muck" to the signal box. This blended in quite well. I then followed this up with a liberal covering of hairspray. I used this method on the telephone box and it seems to work well. The hairpsray does seem to fix the powders without leaving a "sheen".

The completed signal box can be seen here. The weathering does appear subtle as the hairspray does remove some of the powders as it is sprayed.

I then used the "black muck" powder to weather the grounded van body which acts as the office for the coal merchants. This can be seen here.

I am quite pleased with the effect on both models, although I may add a touch more weathering to the signal box as I am not sure it is weathered enough. I still have plans to detail the interior of this model too.

During the last few days I have taken advantage of the layout's "temporary" location in the lounge to run a few trains. I am not able to fit the fiddle yard board in, so the Peco loco lift has been used instead, meaning short trains only. For the benefit of my daughter, my 25 (ish) year old model of Thomas the Tank Engine visited Skaleby West complete with Annie and Clarabel. But recently it has been my large Prairie tank, number 6134 that has been used to shunt wagons in the goods yard. Here are a few pics of the locomotive stood at the platform.

The poor scratchbuilt goods shed remains in-situ at present and can be seen here with the wagons awaiting their turn to be unloaded.

And so with a week and a half of my break remaining I hope to make further progress. At the very least I want to have picked up the wood and made a start on finalising the plans for the second board. I do know that this will likely feature a single track running through, with the scenery depicting more of the village scene - beyond that my plans remain a little bit hazy.

The show

After a busy few weeks at work things have been a little bit quiet in terms of the show. Apologies to those people awaiting emails from me, I have not forgotten, I have just not got around to it yet. Expect to hear from me shortly.

I have started sending out more publicity leaflets and I have finalised the final trade stand for the show. Things are continuing to take shape.

Until next time....