Well, I'm still feeling motivated but am starting to come down off that initial high of seeing the layout standing again, whatever I am doing just seems to take so much longer than it did when I was planning it through in my head! Plus having moved recently I'm frustratingly still spending a lot of time hunting through cardboard boxes for elusive but absolutely critical odds n' ends that without which work comes to a grinding halt, e.g scalpel blades. (I have a hospital-sized box of the dratted things - but WHERE?!)

Anyway, a bit of infrastructure work has been done in spite of all that. Hopefully the backscenes are the last carpentry that I'll have to do for a while.

The background stone walls are made from strips of MDF and sections of cardboard with Noch 1:100 scale contoured brickpaper stuck to them. Capping stones are also from the Noch 1:100 range cut with a hacksaw to various widths.

A few blobs of Blutack hold everything temporarily in place so I can get an idea of how it hangs together. The overbridge girder looks a bit high to me, I'll probably try setting it down about 2 courses deeper into the stonework. In the meantime the class 40 has also had her first trip to the paintshop.

I had been planning to use the upcoming long weekend to get stuck in to track laying, but having had a look under the boards I think I need to concentrate on sorting out my "temporary" wiring bodges as a first priority. What a mess!