Hi all.

Another quick update on the way to getting Ropley ready for its public debut!

Whilst steady progress is being made on track laying in the fiddle yards, I have been giving some thought to lighting the layout. Having had the opportunity to operate Jerry Clifford's excellent Highbury Colliery, and his latest exhibition layout Tucking Mill, I was always impressed by how the lighting of these layouts really shows them off at their best. The setup on these layouts is simply under cabinet kitchen lighting, and so after a brief search on the net, a trip to Screwfix produced a T4 strip light for installation on the rear of the layout facia.

The light was temporarily lashed to the facia board in the photo above, and I'm quite pleased with the result, although the supplied tube may be just a tad on the blue side. The photo below is straight from the iPhone, under the new lighting:

It's amazing what a difference the lighting makes, even in daylight, and it really is stating to look and feel like an exhibition layout. Having the deadline of RMweb live has really pushed along some of the more mundane tasks that needed completing and what would most likely have taken me a year to do has been accomplished in the last few weeks.

So, the van is hired, the curtain is made, and with any luck by next weekend the layout will be fully operational, if not quite fully finished!

Cheers all,

Tom.