Cane River and Winnfield Rock.

[danielb]

This weekend has brought some serious progress to the layout, and with 6 days before the exhibition I am quietly confident it will be ready on time - probably with time to spare.

The fiddle yard board has seen the track laid and wired up, I'll test it tonight and see how it fares on DCC.

I've also ballasted the track on the extension - at least the part that isn't going to be buried in asphalt. The part that is, I am trying to represent this fairly unique way of protecting the rails from road vehicles, as spotted on Madison Street in Gretna, Louisiana (Thanks to Andy Reichert for the clear image snapped from Google Streetview - I was having difficulty finding a shot that wasn't blurred out or fragmented).



Here's my attempt so far - I cut the ties on the Peco code 55 track right back against the rail edge, and stuck down matchsticks which had been cut to the length of ties. I'm not sure how to represent the ties on the inside of the rails, I'm thinking either matchsticks cut in half to reduce the depth, sculpting them with 'Green Stuff' apoxy resin, or simply not bothering and just adding gravel and concrete to the inside of the tracks. I'll see which method works best.


Here's a couple more shots, the first showing the houses mocked up in place...


...the second showing the ballasting (still drying here) and the factory building in place with the sidewalks I've added.


I'll try and get some better shots outside in the sunshine once I've done some more work on the board.

Not much more left to do.