Major progress

Lots of progress over the weekend with the layout. 

The is the pop up where I can get to the middle of the layout. It lifts off it will have an allotment on it eventually.

The base terrain has been added. The inclines for the track and the path of the tracks and the canal are in place.

There will be another lift off hill at this end with tunnels for the tracks and canal.

 

River deep, mountain high.

Work has continued on the layout. The mountain side has been coated with plaster bandage and a base coat added. And the river bed is taking shape. 

Mountain

River valley.

 

Mountain building.

Back in the shed this morning, working on the mountains and riverside.

Hillside

This is the lower hillside/riverside. The cutout is for the canal. 

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Plaster bandage will go over this for the top layer. It will be a loose section so that I can get at stuff under the mountain. 

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A day at the dockside.

A potter in the garden...

Plants moved to the coldframe.

Buds on the magnolia. 

Magnolia

And then work on the bridge and the harbour mouth / sea wall. 

Sea wall

The pins will be replaced with proper bollards eventually.  And the hills are coming alive. 

Forming the hills behind the town.

The bridge will get a centre support......

Life goes on.

The morning was dry enough to venture out into the garden for the odd bit of tidying up. Things are growing slowly. 

Lupins

Primulas

The view

But after lunch forced me in to the Shed, sadly!

Track laying

First bridge

 

A week in the North.

We spent last week in Cumbria visiting Arthur. We stayed with friends for some of the time a B&B in Caldbeck for one night. 

Arthur

Now we are back and looking forward to our next little trip. Work can resume on the layout for a while. 

Safe harbour.

More progress. The harbour is coming along nicely - I have built some free buildings to give me scale and made a few boats so that I know things will look right. The track has had to change from the plan but is looks as if it might work!

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Terraforming.

So now I have to create the landscape starting with the area around the beach and harbour. 

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More work.

Today the last of the boards went down including a lift out panel so that I can reach all areas. Next comes building the terrain. 

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Work on the layout.

Lots of work has been done on the layout. Working out levels so that the river will flow downhill. The harbour will meet with the high tide level and that there is enough depth for the canal is great fun

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Idle hands.

There has been a lot of Quakerly work lately but the odd moment has been spent in the shed. Getting the layout ready for all the DCC control systems has meant turning it on its side so that I can wire up point motors etc. All the wood is also in the garage ready for the next building phase  

On side.

Timber.

I have also made up a little flood light to indicate when the power is on to the tracks  

Let there be a light.

   

The future is digital

Today has been a tecky day setting up the DCC (digital command control) system. It functions on the iPad and with a hand controller. 

Control panel

Control panel

 

In the shed.

Today's task was moving the the shelves and drawers to the other end of the shed and moving the layout. This also meant that I could paint the wall behind the layout so that there was better background- not breeze blocks but blue skies. 

Layout

Blue skies

 

Back to work......

After the Christmas break and the New Year rest it is time to go back to winter jobs? Which means the model railway. As I now want to built the next sections of the DCC layout I need to remove the old DC layout. I am planning on making a smaller table for young people to use with the Brio set and a battery operated layout. So the old one is gone...

Gone.

 

Christmas!

So. The Christmas break is over and after a week away we are back here again.  We went to Helen and Steve for Christmas and did many exciting things   We visited the Black Country Museum, where we enjoyed a typical lesson from the olden days - Steve volunteered to see what the cane felt like  

Black Country Museum

Black Country Museum

Black Country Museum

 We went to a Pantomine - oh yes we did!

 

 

Panto

Steve cooked up a wonderful Christmas Dinner with me working as sous-chef.

Xmas Dinner

On Boxing Day we went to visit Bella and Holly and the boys - this is a photo of their visit to Santa a few days before.

Bella, Holly and the boys

Then their was the Robertson Christmas Gathering - ten of us First Generation were there but we forgot to immortalise the event! There were 56 assorted family there  

Family Party

And today the weather has been so good we went for a walk up the hill  

Walk

Walk