Continuing with the Tweemoor Yard scene, one of the things indicated in the grand plan (shown a couple of blogs back) was a road winding in from the front and over a railway bridge at the back. Unfortunately the yard has spread out more than originally intended, so the road has had to be squeezed in rather tightly at the front. Its more of an N gauge road really, one of those narrow lanes where you wouldn't want to meet a tractor coming the other way.

Previous road surfaces on the layout consisted of a flat layers of painted card, and that is exactly what they look like. For the scene here I decided to use a different method that I hadn't tried before - cork underlay. This actually turned out to be rather wonderful stuff for roads. Its more flexible and stretchy than card, making it easy to add a camber even on winding roads without it rucking up or introducing unwanted speed bumps. Not only that but it also has quite a nice texture when painted.

The base of the road was roughly defined in card. Some thin card was glued along the centre line where the camber is to be.

This is what I'm aiming for...

Glue was applied just along the edges of the cork and it was stuck in place.

The surface was sealed with a couple of coats of light grey emulsion from one of those little tester pots. After that was dry, the road was coloured and weathered to taste with washes of poster paint.

The camber is quite subtle, but makes all the difference in the appearance of the road.

This is how the Tweemoor scene looks so far, still rather bleak.

The card surround shows the eventual extent of the viewing window. I haven't taken the road all the way to the bridge as there will be a view-blocker of trees in that corner, into which the road will disappear. The next steps will be to add ground cover and lots of trees, which should brighten things up.

Cheers Alan.