Since finishing the signal box, I've been working on the railway goods shed for Callow Lane. Several years ago, I bought a Townstreet plaster-cast kit, which I felt has a sufficiently 'Midland' appearance to it. I'm aware it's not in the styles of the M.R. goods sheds at Bitton or Yate, for example, but I like it, it cost a lot of money at the time, and so I'm going to use it on my train set.

The gist of these kits is that you fettle the individual cast components to get a good fit, then glue them together with PVA, so this is what I did.

Although the small office features solid, cast windows (which can be disguised and weathered to good effect with paints and varnish), the main part of the shed has some rather nice etched windows, which do need careful trimming to fit the plaster-cast window frames.

Some modifications I'm making as I go along are:

- replacing the plaster-cast valancing with Slaters plastic variety - crisper and more even finish

- replacing the roof sections with thin ply, laminated to card, to which slate strips will have been affixed

- glueing the whole assembly to a Dalerboard sub-base (as seen in the photo), which provides extra strength whilst the model is being assembled and allows it to be handled with much more confidence. When the model is finished, I will cut away the card that obstructs the track.

What I do like about these kits and this material is the way that it takes paint so nicely, resulting in dead matt brick or stone finishes.

This is the awning on the road-side, which will have replacement Slaters plastic valancing added in due course