Progress since Christmas has been good with the final section of track laying over the bridge completed allowing trains to once more go all around the room. The vertical fiddle yard is still functioning having been dismantled off the wall and then 're-hung' and the old portable sections over the door and the 'crew lounge' (spare bed!) could be re-used with only minor adaption to fit the new position of the rails coming off the main scenic section.

A view from the door gives a reasonable impression of progress.

The lighting will get a fascia panel and there will also be a proper fascia along the front of the layout contoured to the land level. I also intend to rebuild the lever frame box so that it sits lower, with the top of the frame level with the top of the baseboard and just the levers themselves above the level of the baseboard front. To the left of the photograph will be the scenic break (over-bridge) and the station building with the platforms disappearing under this bridge. The land behind the water tower will probably be a slope with trees and there will be a small coal yard next to the tower. The area at the front of the layout has two sidings and a cattle dock still waiting to be laid. In the corner, by the window, you can see the mill buildings in roughly their intended positions.

On the opposite wall the vertical fiddleyard now has four of the six levels completed and working. The top level in intended to have a cross-over so that I can reverse trains between the Up and Down lines off-scene.

The river and bridge needed to be in place to a point where I could lay track on them before I could complete the circuit. The water is a sheet of 6mm acrylic, cut on the laser cutter. It sits about 6mm clear of the bed of the river and has been sprayed on the underside to make it slightly opaque. The top surface has several layers of acrylic varnish painted on to give some ripples. The river will probably end up considerably narrower when the banks are put in place and the edges are going to be exercise in planting lots of reeds. For now I've just tried making a couple of girders from hacked about Wills Vari-girders just to see what the effect will be. The bridge abutments were lasercut from 3mm MDF but this time I decided to abandon the technique of interlocking the corners and just went for trying to mitre the joint using the bench sander in Makespace. I'm beginning to think this actually gives a better corner finish.

Also from Wills, and taken off 'Empire Basin' is the signalbox. This will now sit next to the level crossing for the road the goes past the mill along one bank of the river. We had a discussion on Friday evening as to whether the steps on the box were the wrong way around but I have found several photographs of boxes where the signalman manually opened the gates and the steps still pointed away from the crossing (and not just because they point onto a platform or to some other obvious destination). The nearest example I can find is Littleport.

So today has been spent doing a bit of tidying up and running trains around and around, stopping whenever anything falls off and trying to work out why. Things are now 'lapping' well with most issues down to cleanliness and the odd badly adjusted back-to-back on the wheels. Watching the J65 with a coal train pass the Claud with the short rake of Mk1 coaches is rather fun. The 'problem child' in the form of my Hornby Class 31 can now circumnavigate the room at near warp speed if required, this is always a good sign as with the lack of springing on the bogies it is probably my most fussy engine.

Work continues on the track, the double slip in the yard is next. I've soldered up the crossings and I'm trying to pluck up courage to stick them down.

David