I have been spending the last few weekends trying to finish a few projects that have been dragging on for ages.  This, the attempt to finish a section of 'new' track for the yard, has had enough done to it as I can manage.  The conceit is that the entrance to the yard has been relayed recently with the lifting of a short siding against the warehouse/ grain silos loading bay (all yet to be built), replacing the king-point with a 3-way and slewing track to a single, shared siding along the side of the warehouse.

The project was not helped by my buying khaki ballast during the Covid confinement, rather than the grey desired, the only colour available.

I had mounted the points on paper when track laying, assuming they could be reused easily for a future layout if required.  However, this meant the paper edging lifted, needing disguising with glue and scatter material (again, yet to be purchased and completed).  I need not have bothered.

I spread the dry ballast, weighing down the paper edges with a book-snake, then dripped diluted P.V.C. glue and left to dry for a few days.

Then it was simply a case of painting the sleepers brown and the ballast a Southern Region grey, repainting where I had been inaccurate, and re-repainting until I lost the will to live.  Afterwards, I dulled the sides of the rails with a dilute brown acrylic paint mix, returning a few times to touch up missed areas.

I will weather the ballast lightly with the centre-line of spilt oil and a wash of brown soon, but am content with the results thus far.  Cleaning the points of excess paint and glue was as exasperating as expected - the 3-way still sticks, of course, because it is an Insulfrog - but the locomotives run reasonably well over the track.

The results are far from perfect, but I am pleased with the progress made in adding more texture and colour to the layout, and getting closer to something looking vaguely 'realistic'.  It is another task to tick off the list towards completion, if nothing spectacular to show.