All buildings and walls have now been painted, mortar  (Polyfilla) added and varnished with a ‘dash’ of black paint. Just weathering left to do on some and roof weathering on all.

I have added the doors to the ‘wash out’ shed and redesigned the ‘ash bin’ with slanted sides.

I have now completed the painting of all the Laser- cut Buildings and Retaining Walls. About 50% have had the mortar added and been weathered. You can certainly see the difference in the below photo’s. Coal has been added to the Coal Stage and Ash has been added to the Ash Bin. The plinth for the Wash Out Shed has been weathered and the Main Shed has had its plinth painted. I Have painted the ‘sky’ mid grey as I want the whole layout to depict a dirty run down place with lots of grime around.

Although I still need more buildings for the layout, I have now finished off all my stored Laser Cut buildings etc. Each of the last three items were cut, shuts and amalgamations to make somethings ‘a bit different’. I can really recommend this method of using Laser Cut Kits for making different buildings. A lot of painting and weathering is coming soon!

This Laser Cut shed is the replacement for the original Plastic one. I however utilised the roof and re-profiled the shed doors for re-use.

This extra building was made from leftovers from three different kits!!

This ‘Ash Bin’ was made from scraps of left over wood.

Still working on more laser cut items. Kit bashed a large water tower into something half the size. Finished off all the back walling and integrated the buffer stops. I also made the decision to discard the Plastic built tank engine shed and started to plan the replacement, more on that on the next post – but I will say it utilises the balance of the water tower and one left over wall arches – I love kit bashing!

By the way – the layout will be called ………… Mission Road

This illustrates an original ‘double’ built kit off another layout. The single is the one I bashed from a ‘double’ kit.

Still making and adapting Laser Cut buildings. Placed a lot of them on the layout for the first time – just to play with placement and overall effect. Still no name for the layout, but I will continue to post photos of the progress.

Well, for me it’s a week since I was advised to distance myself from all social occasions. During this time I have been very busy making buildings and walls for another O Gauge Layout. It certainly is not new as I started it some three years ago, but went onto the back burner whilst doing other things.

It is basically a 6′ x 2′ DC Steam Engine Shed. I am trying to make it as generic as possible so that various Regions and eras can be run, including an Industrial option. I estimate it will hold about 15 Tank engine, slightly less if a tender engine or two is used.

I will keep you all up to date as progress is made. I need to come up with a name to cover the project.

Engine Shed

Bothy

Platelayers Hut

Coaling Stage

Boundary Walls (3 so far)

We attended the March Model Railway Exhibition yesterday (14/3) and considering the current situation with the virus, it was very well attended.

We were next to Great Eastern Models so a good day was had with plenty of banter and at the end of the Show – a purchase.

It was also nice to see some old friends, especially my old mate Les Williams – great to see him after such a long time – Les still has three of my layouts.

As we were not really sure about further Exhibitions this year, we decided to run stock that we had more or less finished and that had not run on the layout before. Shaun brought along a small rake of Sealion Bogie ballast wagons – although only semi finished they looked great. The real stars of the stock, in my opinion was a pair of standard snowploughs that Shaun had recently made. Graham also took along some great stock that had not been run on the layout before – thanks both.

Below are some photos of our day taken by Shaun and my wife – again, thanks both.