As can be observed from the deafening silence, things haven't progressed as quickly as I'd hoped. I've done the usual trick of offering to help on numerous things, not thinking that all of them would be taken up. How wrong I was! Fortunately some of them are modelling related so I'll report back on those once I've sorted them out. Still I've been making some limited progress on the layout, so a quick update to show I'm still in the land of the living. I'm about half way through building the baseboards which I'll cover in another posting. I wanted to try a test piece for ballasting the track, this is the method and the result.

So as a brief recap I'm using Exactoscale steel rail and chairs together with full depth timber sleepers from Perfect Miniatures, with modelling the shed scene the sleepers will be exposed in a number of places hence the full depth items.

So a simple Templot print of a short straight is sellotaped down to a thick worktop offcut leftover from the kitchen fitters. I then put a couple of strips of double sided tape along the length and stuck the sleepers down. The sleepers were stained with Rustins wood dye - dark oak.

Even with a couple of coats it still looked a little light so I tried the ebony wood dye which seems better. The sides of the steel rail was treated to a coating of Casey's Gun Blue before loading with the chairs and then glued to the sleepers with Butanone.

Once dry the track panel was lifted and the template peeled away. It was then stuck down using copydex on to sheet of cork laid on a short MDF offcut. I then used some Railmatch weathered black to paint the chairs, not bothering too much about full coverage as there'd be more weathering to do. I was in Hobbycraft and spotted the Games Workshop paints which others had recommended so I thought I'd give them a try. Browsing through snot green and rotting flesh I found a vermin brown, this was dry brushed over the chairs. More copydex was painted between the sleepers and Woodland coarse cinders were brushed into place, this didn't give that good a coverage so I followed it up with a good dose of the fine cinders which seemed to work quite well. This being the result.

Finally the ongoing research unearthed another gem from Transport Treasury. I've finally unearthed a photo showing the line from the mill by the river up quay street up to the site of the old B&G station. in the foreground left is the road bridge to the mill which can still be seen at Tewkesbury. In the distance can be seen the two GWR box vans at the site of the old station. The two cars parked on Quay street seem to be the same two parked down on the quay side in the other photo's I've found.