Not much actual modelling progress to report, but it's been a while since the last layout update, so here's the latest.

After spending what felt like weeks on my hands and knees - the major drawback with having the base-boards on the lounge floor! - grinding off rivet heads and applying cosmetic chairs to the ply sleepers at the base-board joint, I have painted the whole lot with grey primer, prior to applying the actual sleeper and rail colours.

I got this idea from Iain Rice's book on fine-scale track.

The problem is that the ply sleepers used at the joints and in the pointwork are different in both colour and texture from the moulded plastic sleepers in the plain track. The normal wood dye/staining method for ply sleepered track would be very difficult to match with the painted plastic track, so....everything is given a coat of aerosol grey primer to even it all up and then if can all be painted with the same range of colours and apart from very close inspection revealing the proper keys on the cosmetic chairs, it should all blend together. I think you'll agree with the effectiveness of this approach, as shown in the attached photos. It really is hard to see which are ply and which are plastic sleepers. I used Halfords grey plastic primer. It will be interesting to see how durable it is.

The eagle eyed will spot that although I tried to be careful to mask of items not being painted, I have managed to get a bit of primer in several areas where it shouldn't be, although it's not much and should be easy to touch up.

First a general view over the station and coal drop boards:

And now a closer view at the base-board joint (staggered to fall between sleepers on the diverding tracks) and at one end of the platform release cross-over points:

As you can see, I haven't made any attempt so far to represent the point blade tie bars. These will be non-functional and, bearing the shallow viewing angle which will result from the high track level on the completed model, I'm thinking along the lines of just dummy, fixed stretchers not actually attached to the blades at all.

I also have to figure out the best colours of paint to use for the sleepers. These will have to be individually painted, I think, so another long laborious job in prospect. Well, it won't do it itself, so I'll just have to knuckle down....

Dave.