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One house move later and this is still my main layout - the others are awaiting me making our loft habitable. Since the last post I've added a few details including figures, some yard detritus and drystone walls. These are made using a tip from one of the magazines which featured an article about an...

I spent some spare time over the weekend while the snow was going on working on the layout. I added some static grass tufts, some light green scatter over the field at the front to tone down the colour a bit and built a couple of Ratio kits - a yard crane and loading gauge, which are present at the ...

With the scatter now dry, I started adding some foliage. This is a mix of Woodland Scenics Bushes in olive green and Foliage in light green - the Foliage product is really good, it's pretty convincing for something so easy. Most of it has gone on the retaining wall along the back. https://farm8.stat...

I had a bit of a flurry or progress last week. A quiet day on Friday meant I managed to get a good few hours at it on top of the usual few minutes I get here and there. First was papier macheing the slope along the back of the layout and installing the track that accesses the yard from what is now t...

Last night I finished the retaining walls (which didn't take long, the bulk of the work was done) and set about putting them in place. Before I glued them down I had to put the backscene up so that the walls and tunnels were in the right place. With the backscene screwed down and the retaining walls...

I've had mice eat pretty much everything on a layout before - trees, wires, fences, static grass, card - they'll have a go at all sorts. I had to write off my first big n-gauge layout because of them.

Sure enough, some green paint go stuck in the first coat of glue so I had to start again. It's done now- one less coat would have made it clearer but it shines well and looks much lighter in photos than it does in real life. https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7881/46420057914_3efbf161a8_c.jpg IMG_201902...

The bottles and books have been removed and the botom of the canal is in place. I'm going to have to reattach some wires that got knocked out of place but in the meantime I thought I'd get on with sorting the water. My wife was watching Call the Midwife when I got home last night and I'd already mad...

I didn't make much progress last night - I'd hoped to get my backscene sorted but when I opened the tube it turned out the small Gaugemaster ones are only 3 or so feet long, which isn't enough to do the job. I've ordered another, and used the opportunity to get some Scenecraft buildings cheap in Ker...

I made a little extra progress over the weekend. I've created the top of the canal walls. This was done by- Laying down some scalescenes cobbles on the side nearest the front to represent the towpath. https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7839/32119714047_83da65b238_c.jpg IMG_20190208_091535 by lukegoestoa...

I cycle along the Union Canal for 10 miles to get to work and (when it's been light enough) I've pondered this, based on Mr Nevard's advice. To me, under grey Edinburgh skies, it always looks black, which is why I thought of black as a base layer. Though today it looks a murky browny-green, partly b...

I started modelling the canal last night. We are moving into a new house at the start of April. The base of the canal will be made from the top of the other half of the wallpaper pasting table the layout is made of. I didn't really want to put half an unusable pasting table in the mover's van so tho...

Thanks very much everyone. Here's a map showing the railway and canal as they were. Arkright's Mill is shown in red, the newer Masson Mills in blue and the sidings I'm modelling in orange, with the canal in blue alongside it. This bit of the railway didn't serve the mills but limestone quarries up t...

The photos should be fixed now.

I moved house in September last year, from a proper house in Derbyshire to a tiny 25m square flat in Edinburgh. As a result Newtonmore, my 8ft long N gauge layout is in a storage unit until we find somewhere to buy. My wife and I have started setting aside Monday evenings to just chill out in the fl...