Although baseboard construction for Nowhere has been progressing rapidly, I've managed some progress on the embankment, bridge and station yard modules for Loose Ends. The basic form of the bridge module is now complete with the bridge itself, the river banks and the stone piers in place. Though I've yet to consider the river water or the backscene, and a central pier is yet to be built, possibly with Brunellian cylindrical supports. I'm still experimenting with different ways of painting the stonework to try to represent something like Bath or Cotswold stone. I'm not there yet, but its much closer than my first attempts. Meanwhile, the track components have arrived and I've started laying track on the embankment and bridge.

At this point, I have to reveal a hitherto closely guarded secret about Loose Ends. It is to have GWR mixed gauge track so that I can run both narrow and broad gauge stock. At the moment, the latter is limited to a single, almost complete, tilt wagon shown in the photos, but I have several BGS kits sitting at the end of the bench awaiting my attention.

In line with my intention to use Loose Ends as a way of experimenting with different modelling techniques, I am trying two different methods of track construction. The rail is BGS bridge rail and is being laid on timber baulks on the embankment and copper clad on the bridge and into the station yard. On the timber baulks, the rail is soldered to brass pins which pass through the baulks. So far, this method seems a bit more fiddly, though this is probably made worse by the need to level the baulk surface by sanding and with packing pieces because the surface of the underlying cork is aomewhat undulating

Bearing in mind that Loose Ends is intended to sit on a shelf near eye level and that one of its purposes is to give me somewhere to photograph stock, I'm hoping that the nature of the track will only be apparent when viewed from above. It should be quite possible to photograph my Edwardian and later stock from a lower angle without it being apparent that they are sitting on track that should have been lifted at least 10-12 years earlier. If not, then we'll just have to invent a fiction that the broad gauge survived a little longer in this alternative universe There will be very little pointwork and all of it will be on modules that could be removed from the layout, leaving a simple traverser at each end. Standard gauge EM stock should therefore run happily on the P4 gauge rails as they will not have any flangeway gaps to deal with.

By the way, I'm surprised that no one has yet managed to identify the prototype for the bridge cattle creep on the embankment section. My wife (who knows her architecture) recognised it straight away!