I went to visit the Aln Valley Railway yesterday knowing there is a model railway display. It was a very interesting and informative experience and i can only hope my layout will look half as good as this:

So this morning I wentto work with renewed vigour. I painted the road in the centre of the board, acrylic paint directly onto the plyboard, it actually gives it a nice texture.

The plaster that hadn't been has now been painted and the tunnel entrance, I had to use a double track version, the single wouldn't fit in but a double on an angle did. Let's just hope the trains will run past because I haven't tested that yet. then I reinstalled the missing bit of track in the corner and completed the bridge.

After this I turned my attention to what I have planned for that corner, Months ago I had planned a big mountain there, even built it and stuck some trees on, but I changed my mind. You see I didn't have a station yet, what if i built it on top in that corner. I experimented cutting platforms from cardboard and so on but yesterday I managed to pick up some cheap curved platform. I'd already cut a piece of board to fit the corner and fabricated electric connections to it.

Then yesterday I picked up some curved platform on the cheap and started to fabricate this:

The board is 3mm ply and underneath have fabricated contact points with copper tape and solder, I've done the same at the back of the baseboard and this way I can remove this part to clear derailments underneath. Then I laid 2 copper tracks on the underside of the board to which all the lights are wired. The superquick country station i cut of a standard platform that i'd bought second hand and again I painted the ply with acrylic paint.

I spent the rest of the day trying to improve the look of the station and eventhough it's not done yet I'm very happy with the progress.

Tomorrow I will plant some lamp posts, both at the station and in the main road and since my controller is finished I will test that. I feel a video coming on.....

Quick update: made the video, but the shunter kept derailing on the inner loop, changed the points for ones I bought second hand at a steel but not remade the video yet. Did some other track work but spent most of the day sorting out the little station board.

Painted the pavement and installed some lampposts. Then I realised all the loose wires underneath could get entangled in trains running underneath so I taped them to the ply. still having trouble with the contact patches, I need to weigh the board down a bit to get a good contact.

Then just this last bit, the lamp posts in the village, here they are:

7 inches apart, just stuck that in my calculater and its 13.5 meters in scale. recon it should be 30 meters in scale but hey what the hell.