I think that last sentence pretty much sums up what Chris Nevard did on Catcott Burtle. Of course, I may have just had a lapse in memory and made that up, but I'm pretty sure that's what Chris did.

I think whatever you choose it will look good. I have enjoyed quietly following your blog.

Follow the nearest prototype photos

I go with Beast's advice. It always seem sto me that either today's modellers go over the top with all the grass and muck or my memory of the much tidier four foot, cess and lineside of the 1960s is dreadfully wrong.

Lineside maintenance did not drop off until after the end of steam and really good weedkillers (which would kill all sorts of other things as well) weren't banned until some years later after it was found the best one in use on BR contained Agent Orange B) . And as for the condition of cess etc paths - maintained in fairly good order well into the 1970s I seem to recall.

You can always add something. Taking it off again is a lot more hassle.

Thanks folks, you all seem to agree with my belated prognosis that many of these freight-only lines were still kept tidy in the steam era, and as for the very good advice of following the photos is concerned, that's actually what got me thinking in the first place. The photos of Stroud Wallbridge, Dudbridge Junction, Nailsworth etc. all bear out a tidy and weed-free running line, with grot in the sidings.

Accordingly, I will scale back the amount of weed growth on the running lines on Callow Lane, and have sidings with cinder/grunge/mud ballast, with actual stone ballast showing through in places (which is also what Chris Nevard did ). I am treating all the turnout areas properly with proper ballast, including the beginnings of each of the four sidings, and will blend the gunge in gradually....

I think I will allow the grass to grow freely and long on the old disused platform, however, much as per a number of photos I've seen, with a just-discernible walking route through the middle of it, where railwaymen have used it...

As for Miss Prism's comment about the line being 'about to close', well, I have a special Time-Space Continuum Selection Switch - in 'Position A' the line closed in 1966, along with the rest of the S&D and the ex-Midland routes around Mangotsfield, whereas if I select 'Position B', you find coal seams that lasted longer, a chocolate factory that refused to die, and (pre-TOPS) blue era diesels trundling around.....