Hi Al, the cattle dock looks great. It could ony be improved in my opinion by the addition of a few strategically placed cow pats! I would have thought that a few blobs of glue squeezed from tube of polystyrene cement would do the job nicely. I'm not sure if Humbrol do a "cow pat brown" in their range of prototype colours though!

Dave

Hi Al, this is very interesting. I intend to do something similar on my next layout, but have been wondering how to do the "breaks". I had been wondering about cobbles and you demonstrate very well here that it can work. I like the tufts of grass at the end of the dock that help give it an embedded look. Thanks!  

Dave: the Ratio kit does actually give you a few moulded cow pats to use, but I think I used them all up on the dock itself. I should have saved one or two for the foreground. As you say, a bit of glue should do the trick. Mm, lovely!

Kelly: if you dig back into the thread (although I've sometimes complicated things by posting in my S&D blog as well) you'll see that there are quite a few of these removable bits, including both station platforms, the foreground embankment and a bit of the rear scenery. The ideas is to be able to swap to S&D running but in theory almost anything's possible provided it doesn't clash too badly with the backscene scenery. Even, I think, some parts of Scotland such as Fife.

Mikkel: given your skills I'm sure you could do a much more creative job of hiding the various joins!