During the past two weeks I have been mostly doing modelling activities that do not really show tangible results and as such I have not posted anything. However after a week of working away I thought it was worthy of a blog entry to give me a boost to keep going.

The first thing that I shall mention is the fact that I have now painted the viaduct (several times in fact!). I was not happy with its plastic finish so I initially gave it a grey wash to see if that would make it look a bit better. Unfortunately this did not work so I painted the entire structure white to give me a better base colour to work with. From here I attempted a yellow wash to give it a light yellow finish. However the yellow I used was too deep and the wash too diluted. Finally yesterday I mixed some of the yellow with some white acrylic paint, diluted it down a little and gave it a quick once over. The results are quite pleasing:

I will be adding a coat of white to give the cement joins a bit more texture.

I am looking to weather the bridge and I have a few pictures to help me get the right look. What I now need to do is find the right colour. I was thinking of rail match sleeper grime but diluted so that it gives a weathered/dirty look to the bridge. I am not sure how best to apply it so I may be asking for help in the help forums again…

The next thing was the painting of the sleepers on a length of flexitrack. I need to do another 2 foot or so worth of track for this project and I shall be glad when it is over. This initial colour will be toned down with darker shades to make it look like weathered timber. I could have sprayed it I suppose but I found the painting quite therapeutic and I also think the fact that certain parts of the track that are not painted help make it look a little better.

Last but by no means least, I added the two ends to the base boards. One side was too long and I only noticed after it was fixed and moved back upstairs. I shall have a go at sanding this down before I get further with the project.

Those are the physical pieces of work that I have done. However I have also been researching the Draisine track maintenance vehicle. I have really come to enjoy their looks and I have gathered a fair few pictures for reference from the internet. One issue that did bug me was that the smallest N Gauge chassis you can get is too tall and all of the ones that are the correct height are too long. However I did manage to find an ingenious solution on a French forum regarding a similar scratch build. I have now made some pretty accurate measurements of the lengths that are important to this build. It will be quite a tricky one but I also think very enjoyable, especially if I manage to incorporate all of the features I hope. More on this soon.