Pushing on with lots of small, fiddly jobs like ballasting, continuing the point rodding, adding barrow crossings and the like. With the ballasting now done throughout the whole module, the end finally feels like it's in sight. That's not to say that there aren't lots of detailing tasks to be done, but at least when I run a train through the scene, there aren't huge bits jumping out at me as still largely unfinished.

I mentioned the operating level crossing a few months ago; now that I've begun to finalise the scenery around it, I made a minor adjustment to the position of one of the four servo-operated gates - it was a bit too far from the track - and then set about adding wooden planking and so on. I also added wicket gates to the right of the crossing, allowing pedestrian passage - presuming that this was a legal requirement?

The irregular-shaped area behind the track, enclosed by green wooden fences, is another removable scenic module, and at the moment it's a bit of a place-holder while I decide exactly what to do with it. In this version, I think it might become an orchard. Another version might contain the Wills pub kit, which I've still yet to build, or perhaps a small rural industry. The fences definitely need weathering, and I'm not sure about the overgrowth around their bases, there to hide the thick piece of foam the module is mounted on.

The point rodding is the Wills product, which is OK but a little over-scale and tricky to join together neatly. I'm willing to bet that Wenlock's exquisite 7mm rodding would still look finer than this, even if transplanted onto my 4mm layout. But once weathered, I think it will look less obtrusive and contribute to the overall "railwayness" of the scene.

Five years after I completed the first loop of track on the continuous run, I'm certainly very happy with the layout even though I imagined it would take a bit less time than it has. But although it's very simple in operational terms, with just two points on the visible part of the layout, and in DC mode only one train can move at a time, I'm still finding that there's more than enough to sustain my interest. I just hope it continues!

Cheers, and thanks for reading.