We seem to be moving further and further away from a state of readiness the closer we get to our club open day.

Some significant surgery has been taking place to improve the return curves at either end of the layout. This involves a couple of lengths of track being soldered into one huge length to smoothly take the curve...without track joins anywhere on the curve. Net result; a huge area of track has been lifted and relaid (or at least a start has been made here...)

Further along, the base for a new road overbridge has been cut out and roughly positioned. This can be seen in the distance in the above picture and in more detail here...

A few changes can be seen here. The large Kato building, displaced by the new retaining wall along the back of the yard, has now been sited here. The white mess beside it is a rough ground covering put down prior to sanding and painting as a road section. This covers the site of the old outer siding, the remains of the trackbed and point can be seen on the extreme left. Another siding has been trimmed back to make room for a small train crew hut.

The large block of wood in the foreground is only a temporary support for the road bridge, which will be concrete with similar pilings to the bridge carring the main road seen in the first picture.

This view shows the road incline to the bridge starts a little way back. There will be a few modifications to this, as the curve is still a little too abrupt at the start.

We are planning to spend an afternoon on the layout next Friday to really get some tangiable progress made here. Its looking a bit forlorn at present...