Path Finder

With our attention directed towards installing the first light signals onto the layout, I have to report that not much progress was made on the town area again this week. 

However, we did manage to lay some cork beneath the buildings and, thereby, better create the road layout around them. This cork now needs to be covered in some form of paving and we are considering our options here. We could use scatter or some more of the Metcalfe paving sheets, however, I see that there is a web site called modelrailwayscenery.com that sells downloadable pdfs of, among other things, textured paving sheets. 

They look quite good and the idea is that, for £1.99, you download a PDF of an A4 sheet and then print off as many sheets as you need on your own printer. I have not downloaded any so I cannot say what the quality is like but it got me thinking that, with a digital camera and a computer programme such as Photoshop, we could probably create something similar ourselves. So, this weekend, I plan to go for a walk around town and photograph suitable areas of paving and, then, manipulate it in Photoshop  to make up my own sheets of paving. I promise to report back here with the results!

You will also see from the pictures above that we also gave all of the landformed embankments etc a coat of earth wash in readiness for landscaping. This immediately makes everything look so much better than it does when it is snowy white.

The next job is to insert a small bridge over the stream, between the clock tower and the row of houses, this will carry the road over to a car park, craft centre and lake. After this has been done we hope that progress in completing this area will be quite swift as we are now slowly getting all of the items together for the diesel depot and really want to start that job next.