As part of the scenic work for the station board, the right-hand wing wall has been completed. I'd cut the stone facing pieces from Wills sheets some time ago but have now completed the wall by assembling the two pieces and adding the capping. The assembly has been painted using the sooted stone technique explained to me by Peter Leyland - paint the basic stone colour all over, when thoroughly dry, paint matt black and wipe off using kitchen roll with a vertical action.

This new angled section of wall is on the station board whilst the remainder of the coal drops is on the adjacent coal-drop board. You can see the joint in one of the photos, just below the edge of the coal drop deck. Overall, I think I've managed to match the colouring across the joint and then gradually have less blackening progressively along the wing wall where less dirt and coal dust would have been flying about.

Behind the wing wall and then along the front of the goods yard, there is an extended low retaining wall holding back an embankment. I'm debating the best way of producuing the retaining wall - which is curved in both plan and in the vertical plane along its length and has an appearance which is not replicated by any of the embossed/printed products I can find - and also the embankment itself. For this I'm hovering between some sort of closed foam material and wire mesh with plaster bandage construction. Any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcome for both the wall and the embankment.

Cheers,

Dave.