Polish on, polish off

As I've said before, I see the early days of my return to 2mm as a learning process. one in which the power of photography is playing a powerful part.

Dark Hall, for instance, has never been intended as anything other than what the model boat fraternity calls a " stand-off scale" model. When on the wall, no one can get closer than a metre away from it. as long as it looks OK from that distance I'm happyBut there are compromises I'm happy to make, and those that I don't want to because they are just an excuse for sloppy work when I know I can do beter.

I'm slowly refining the SH Toad. Not for the first time in RTR N I've found the large gaps between the "planks" hard to live with, and the moulded handrails mean washes can lead to nonsensical shadows. I'm treating it very much as a test mule The station building is also slowly being improved.

The photo shows I've used foamboard to raise the ground level relative to the Kato Unitrack. The Kato track is a great product, but for me it has tow major drawbacks. The rail section has a very heavy head, which looks very obvious in a close up like this.

Then there is the join between sections. Now for the Circus modules this is great, clearly very robust. But in this context it is visually intrusive. I'm going to try to disguise it with a mixture of painting and Kato's compatible loose ballast.

The platform is one of two I got from MMR Models.  I'm using one of the shelters that comes with it on a Circus module. A shortened version of the platform will go on Gerralt Road.

Speaking of which, I've bitten the bullet and am replacing half the quarry structure with a Ratio corrugated sheet.Whilst it is meant to be a peripheral scene break, not a focus of attention, I just couldn't live with the 3d-printed version. In other contexts, I think it would have been fine, but not at the front edge of the layout.

I'm also trying the HO version of the Redutex sheeting on the station shelter for Gerralt Road. The 160th scale sheet just looked wrong. If that doesn't work, it will end up as Ratio sheets instead, though I hate working with it because of the thickness.

Meanwhile, in the garden, I need to do some lineside clearance

Next stop Crich.