Rain Stopped Play

 

So, after making regular statements recently saying that we were soon to begin work on the unfinished part of the town, I can finally confirm that we actually made a start at the weekend - hooray!

Now, I have to be honest at this point and say that no work was due to take place since we had long since made plans to take a trip down to the Swanage Railway who were holding their annual Diesel Gala Weekend. The idea was to video and photograph (and ride behind too, of course) an assortment of diesels, which included: Class 73, 56, 55, 52, 37 and 33 - hmm, what fun! However, since the weather chose this same weekend to bring a spectacular end to our long, dry spell, we decided instead to stay home and work on the layout.

We commenced by laying the foundation for the paved area beneath the row of shops in the middle of the town. This was achieved using grey board topped off with cork tiling but it will only be paved when all of the other messy work is completed.

We then used some more of the very useful grey board to link the road that runs through the town to the bridge that takes it over the railway line. For the road surface itself, when we get around to doing it, we will probably use some of the Noch Asphalt Road on a Roll since it did look quite effective when we experimented with it at the weekend.

Another job that we did was to raise the embankment to the stream and lake so that we could make these slightly deeper and, thereby, create more of a waterfall at the inlet.

The outlet of the lake will disappear into a culvert and, then, under the embankment, bridge and railway.

The area of white that you can see as being marked as a future car park will probably be a lot smaller than this since the plan now is to develop this corner into a church yard. 

For this, St Andrew's church will be relocated to here from where it is at the moment - in the northern half of the layout.

With that half being earmarked for a future rebuild, the church (together with much else of what is there) would anyway either be moved or disappear altogether. Besides, it is better to have the church in the town rather than where it is at the moment, which is somewhat isolated.

As for the Diesel Gala at Swanage, I believe that it was a great success and photos of the event can be seen here. 

Ah well, there is always next year!