With Bad Horn attending STORMex on 4th August, I figured that I should attend to some of the wear that's come about from long distance transport and simply sitting on display in the living room. Grass has been the main victim, with some patches looking pretty bare. Also, the fine appearance of static grass fibres has never quite matched my own vision of scrubby verges alongside the railway.

Hanging basket liner was in the back of my mind as a solution, and searching the web I found a few good looking uses of it. Of course, it's also recommended by no lesser a modeller than Barry Norman. Taking my mother to the garden centre on Monday I picked some up (at £3 a metre it's a cheap material as well!) and set about trying it.

At first I was a little generous with the PVA, and in places it soaked right through to the backing layer making its removal difficult, and the remaining fibres hard to tease out. I've gradually got the knack, and I'm letting the odd bare patch be my cue for adding other plants such as brambles. I'll try and bring some flowering plants into the mix somehow, and I'm studying photographs to ascertain a suitable mix. I'd love to find a scenic specialist shop to have a good browse of available products. Lichen isn't cutting it for me any longer. If only it had been on my mind while I was at Intermodellbau... still, it's Thornbury on Saturday.

Below is how the hanging basket liner is looking so far.

Lots of teasing and trimming yet...

I'm torn between courses of action to achieve homogeneity between station details and stock. At present, the station furniture implies post 1994, and hence DBAG. This does mean the only real visual discrepancy when I run my ex-DR stock is the signalling. I could get 100% match with my Bundesbahn stock by simply putting DBAG decals on them, and that would be good for the era. Only a BR 220 would be out of place, and that looks too big on Bad Horn anyway. I do have some Bundesbahn orange station furniture which I could replace the existing stuff with, but then the discrepancy when I run the ex-DR stock is even greater. I could also just ignore the issue, as I'm keen to make a start on something wholly new... but that's another story.