Over the past few weeks I had come to the conclusion that the main village on my layout was born out of lack of thought and that a few changes could be made to enhance the village and make it look similar to other villages and towns in the area it is meant to represent (The Limousin Region of France). So over the weekend I hacked away at a portion of the village and stripped it back. The intention is to create a small road that is on the level that runs paralell to the main road but at a different height. This new road will be on the level and allow the houses and shops to be placed in a more natural looking way.

I started by creating a balsa wood frame for the new road:

Then I added a plasticard set of supporting walls around the exposed areas of wood.

The icing on the cake will be the use of Woodland Scenics road system to replace the road that was ripped up and to also give the road on the wall a better look. I intend to use the Noch pavements.

In further building related news I have had my first attempt at weathering. It has made a huge difference as can be seen below:

In other news the X3900 conversion is progressing. New windows have been cut out and some windows have been extended. The original unit is pictured here:

The right side after the new windows had been filed:

and the left side after the new windows had been filed:

I need to remove the rear access doors and then install some new doors.