Last August I came back from an enjoyable visit to Railwells both fired up with ideas, and at the same time dissatisfied with various aspects of my own layout. One thing I've always tried to pay attention to is composition and a balance between spaciousness and cramped detailing. Sometimes you need a bit of both, but often when something's not quite right, it can be very tricky to pin down where the difficulty lies, and what to do about it.

However, after taking a good hard look at the right hand end of the summer module, I decided that something needed to be done. Here's a shot of the level crossing at the extreme right of the module, as it was until last year:

In this image, the shop in the immediate foreground acts as a view block to conceal where the tracks continue to the right, passing through the backscene into about 18 inches of limbo between this module and the adjoining winter modukle. The backscene bends around to sit snugly against the back of the shops.

After my Railwells epiphany, I decided to re-align the backscene so it extended all the way to the winter module, bringing the former "limbo" area into the scope of the summer module, creating several square feet of additional modelled area. This was quite a brutal job, as the backscene was curved MDF, glued to a hardboard former, and thoroughly difficult to budge! But after a weekend's wprk of careful work with Stanley knives, clamps and only one trip to A&E, I managed to realign it, splicing in a new section to extend the sky a couple of feet further. This reworking in turn dictated a new lighting rig, so that was yet more work, but worth it, I think, for the new area it opened it, and the possibilities for "relaxing" some of the more cramped scenic elements already present.

The first job was to take a good hard look at the servo-driven level crossing. Although it worked well, I was increasingly niggled by the fact that the Peco gates didn't close off the tracks completely when set to allow road traffic. They are just barely long enough even if the double track formation is straight, but mine was curved, necessitating much greater clearances to avoid being swiped by trains.

New gates were therefore demanded, using two sets of Wills 4-square gates cut down to 3 each:

These in turn needed the servo mechanisms to be removed and reinstalled at slightly different positions. But the end result is more pleasing because the crossing as a whole is much more spacious than before, with decent clearances at all points. And now the gates close off the tracks as well as the road. A lot of work, much of it messy and difficult due to having work underneath the boards, but worth it in the end.

With the crossing improved, I also eased the alignment of the road as it continues beyond the crossing and up the hill. Previously it had taken a sharp swerve to the left, but it's now gentler and I think the visual appearance benefits. Of course this meant that the buildings set back from the road all needed to be adjusted and have new pavements, walls etc re-installed, a process which is still underway.

I also decided that I didn't really like the shop in the foreground. Or, more accurately, I liked it as a model but it didn't sit well with the distinctly rural atmosphere suggested by the other buildings, which I think are more in keeping with a village or the outskirts of a small market town.The red-brick shop looks more urban to me, so it was removed and put aside for another project.

In its place goes this Wills Craftsman pub, which I built over the Christmas period, and which is slowly being painted and detailed.

It's a kit I was given as a present some years ago, but which always terrified me whenever I opened the box, but in the end it all went together nicely and I think it definitely sits in that scene a little more happily than the shop did. I've set it at a slight angle to the road, partly to give a better view of trains, but also to suggest that the road took a different alignment before the coming of the railway. Hopefully that works?

The stone walls are castings which my wife made for me about ten years ago, similar to the ones I used on Cogirep. I think we got the mould from a Dutch scenic company, although the name escapes me. They're "European" but I don't think they look terribly out of place in a British context?

So, there you go - nothing mind-blowing, but a welcome bit of progress on the module. Cheers!