Took a few minutes out from the drudgery of ballasting track to pose a few little scenes:

Ok, dont ask me why they're upside down, the images are the right way up on my computer when I upload them! I dont know how to fix that, there doesnt appear to be a way of rotating them in Blogger.

Did some ballasting at the weekend, and also finished the Polyfilla embankment and painted it brown as a soil undercoat to the static grass I'll add to it later:

Another go at signalling layout.

Alternative signalling arrangement crude sketch (for discussions on RMweb)

Some photos of last night's progress, yard lamps and a bit of a hill near the fuelling roads. I might extend this all the way to the end of the board actually, because it looks a bit alien at the moment, like it doesnt belong there as part of the original landscape:

So after success with the Polyfilla, and some considerable time spent sandpapering it down and testing it, I now have a concrete yard for my depot:

I'll paint this concrete colour and add some dirt and oil etc, plus a security fence around the outside and a couple of yard lamps.

I began work on the concrete hardstanding area in front of the depot on Tuesday evening. I bought some Hobbycraft own brand clay as an experiment, this is what it looked like on Tuesday night:

And this is what it looked like on Wednesday morning:

Rubbish :-(

So, the way I've always done it is using Pollyfilla. You do get some cracking, but nothing like the picture above, and it seems to stick to the baseboard as well, unlike the clay which all came up really easily with light finger pressure. I ran out of Pollyfilla last night, here's what it currently looks like after I ripped all the clay up and put the new stuff down:

Hopefully when I get back from work it will still look like that, and I can get a new tub and finish the rest off.

Something else I bought at Hobbycraft was this 'medium buff' ballast, for an experiment, and I think it looks quite nice, certainly better than the rather boring grey stuff I used on the layout in the garage:

It now looks quite pleasingly realistic I think.

 Track painting is now complete, which is a fairly tedious and delicate process whereby you apply a line of rust coloured paint to the visible side of each rail with a very fine paintbrush. I've saved 50% of the work by not doing the 'back' of the rail (which is the side we will see when operating it, from the back), and you have to be careful not to touch the top of the rail with the paint as this is where the train wheels take power from the track. Just the ballast to add now to finish the track work. Photo below:
 

Here's a couple of shots of the layout as it currently stands:

And a couple of photos showing the station platform, where I have now tapered the platform ends, and installed the cable trunking for the signals:

and this is the entrance to the goods siding, which is up a bit of a slope to add some visual interest to an otherwise flat layout. I've also installed some cable trunking here to a relay cabinet and what will be a ground signal on the left, and made a start on the retaining walls to the yard behind.

Next job is to put in the concrete hardstanding for the depot, which I did using Polyfilla on my other layout, which seemed to work quite well so I'll probably do that again.