So there has been steady progress at Buckden since my last post. The first thing to do was work on some further ground cover. This started with a rough paint of earth colour over most of the yard with burnt and raw umber acrylic paints, and application of some DAS white clay to fill in the sleepers at the end of the long siding (over a coat of PVA) before this too was given a coat of the same acrylics. I've then been using a mix of woodland scenics material (having found Model Railways Direct shop in Portishead which has a great stock) to build up the ground cover, on top of a dilute PVA base. So far olive green underbrush, soil coloured fine turf and fine light grey and fine ballasts have made an appearance. All of which can be seen in the first pic:

Also in the background is a slightly-more-prototypical than last time 2MT with a short goods in the background. I've also added a shortened Ratio 502 cattle dock which is here:

And very excitingly I now have a platform! This was built from Wills SS62 station ramps SS61 platform sections, ignoring the stone platform tops and building the platform surface from plasticard and building the rear from plain plasticard too. The top I'm thinking will be sand paper for the gravel and then edged with the edging stones from the kits. I'm mulling over whether to paint the platform brickwork (And the bridge) in engineering brick blue if I can find an appropriate paint, as I think that's more likely based on the pictures I've seen.

Soon I'm going to bite the bullet and build the station building - which will be scratch built, and I'm currently mulling over what to colour to surface the rest of the yard with - it's a quite a big expanse and I want to get it right - so suggestions welcome!