More scenery, trees and track

Despite the 3 weeks of silence work has continued apace on the first scenic section.

This is becoming more heavily vegetated - several hedges are in place as well as more trees and bushes - with more to come. The remaining rough grass areas have been coloured and other details to the countryside such as a stile and footpath fitted.

In addition the third (conductor) rail has been fitted on this baseboard and coloured - "rail rust" on the sides and a black permanent marker rubbed along the top to give the impression of the shiny black greasy surface of the prototype.

The third rail was fitted using Peco Conductor Rail Chairs and some lengths of Code 60 FB rail which I already had in stock from the distant past when steadiness of hand and eyesight permitted making my own track! Peco provide spacing washers to raise this to an appropriate height for Code 100 rail and I did not use this as I felt the rail was sufficiently proud of the track as it was. This was borne out by the fact that in a couple of locations I had minor clearance problems with some goods wagons - how much worse this would have been had I used the spacers!

The first tree based on a specific individual tree has now been commenced the wire frame having just been completed. This is a Common Oak growing about 200 yards from Arundel Station. We (my partner and I) have long been fascinated by this tree which appears to have been forced - presumably by storms into a horizontal position. The roots remain in the soil and as a consequence there is much vigorous growth on the near vertical branches with the added feature of some low branches near ground level.

I am neither ambitious or insane enough to try to model this exactly but the prepared skeleton includes the major features and already holds much of the character of the original. The original can be seen by anyone driving past Arundel Station, particularly in an Easterly direction where they will see the tree in a field to the left shortly after the station.

No more pictures at the moment but more will be up before long - hopefully in an improved and more user friendly gallery.