Painting done at last !!
So now into ballasting mode
I've been thinking about ballast and feel that in all probability we get it wrong, particularly for the post war steam period.
Most stations, goods yards, branch and slow lines didn't have nice clean ballast. They had black-grey contaminated ash, clinker
with occasional stones in it !!
Still get things into perspective, this is a kids 'Thomas' layout so exact prototypical scenery not an essential.
Here is ballast laid along both lines, before glue dribbled on it. I hate ballast over sleepers so great care is taken at this stage.

On this layout the 6 foot is not 6', but somewhat wider with 30 mm giving 7 foot 6 inches between sleeper ends.
I decided that I'll have greenery in the form of weeds taking over the 'cess' although in fact this should be just cleared dirt !!

I did leave one part with nothing, but the painted ply just dosen't look 'right',
very fine garden soil may be the thing to use ?

Anyway you just Have to have a little play, so here is a GWR milk train
Several days ballasting to do as I prefer to just put a foot or so down at a time..
Geoff T.