A few days off work saw some enjoyable progress on the summer module. Currently it's in "GWR" guise although as mentioned earlier in this blog, all the region-specific fittings are designed to be easily swappable so that I can switch to S&D operations with relatively little bother, as well as having some scenic areas that can be changed purely for variety.

Here's the current state of play in the station/goods yard area, before I ran out of Wills sheets to do the setts between the sidings:

The cattle dock is a removable feature to allow for period as well as region variation - the idea is that the area where it now rests will be occupied by a large provender store. Obviously there will be some visible joins in the setts but I'm hoping to arrange these to look like drainage channels, so that the effect isn't too jarring.

Looking back from the yard - pretty pleased with the sense of space here, but then again the boards are over 2' wide at this point which is a lot for a shelf layout. I won't pretend that the setts in the yard will ever look as good as if they had been hand carved - see Captain Kernow's magnificent work on Callow Lane - but with a lot of filling and sandpapering and re-scribing of lost detail, I don't think the result is too bad. We'll have to wait and see how it looks when painted. The shed itself sits on a apron of foam which will again be a removable feature, enabling a variety of different sheds to be used, but with no ugly line around the base of the shed itself - the join will be an inch in front of the shed, and again hopefully looking like a drainage channel.

Panoramic view of a large area of the module:

Continued treatment of foliage around the bridge area, hoping to get that very lush summer look - my guru here is Re6/6 but I've a long way to go before I get near John's level of scenic skill.

A goods train viewed from about eye-level:

Looking down on the bridge area, to give an idea of progress and to show my efforts to blend the road into the backscene. Still more work to be done here, and I think I'll make a suggestion of the lane curving away into distant fields.

Finally, I've begun installing DCC Concepts lamps on the layout. These are a very well designed product and nicely versatile. But, it's been a bit of a headache to work out the best way to use them on the module, given the need to make the platforms removable. I could have fixed them directly to the platforms, but they have a lengthy stub which projects down below baseboard height. This isn't a problem in itself but I want to be able to use the existing platforms as templates for future ones, which means they must be able to be placed down on a flat surface such as a sheet of card or paper. I also need to be able to easily plug in and unplug the lamps.

The solution I came up with is that each lamp is attached to a small sub-base of platform material which simply rests in place in its rectangular aperture. The "gubbins" of the lamps then project right down through the platform and through a conduit in the baseboard. Finally, I've soldered extensions onto each lamp's wiring which include tiny two-pin connectors which are small enough to drop down through the conduits.

Incidentally the lamps come in three heights. I meant to use them at the lowest height, but mistakenly ended up using them at the middle height and had already soldered two lamps up before I realised my error. Looking at photos, though, tall lamps were not at all unusual so I will be happy with these. The DCC Concepts kit comes with a circuit board with an adjustable potentiometer which I turned down to its lowest output setting before I was happy with the dimness of the lamps. Using the plugs, I can swap out the lamps in literally seconds although in practise, I'll also be swapping out the entire platforms and associated structures.

Cheers - and now that Mr Hatton has delivered me some more setts, I can crack on with more work in the yard.