Sorry, no pun-ny title as I've lost my lengthy lengthy post (it's just one of those days already, and it's not even 7am).

Here goes:

So, first things first, progress on the 3D printed refinery wagons has been amazing, and the wonderful Mark Greenwood has already completed the wagons! Not only that, but the test prints came out brilliantly, and as a direct result I have already ordered 12 of his wagons which are due to be shipped out today:

Please visit his website where you can now buy these wagons for yourself. Whilst they are designed around the A.G.W.I flat wagons that carried asphalt in drums (as pictured above), I'm sure they are suitable for a wide variety of uses! I've seen them used as passenger wagons (a back to back park bench ontop! And yes, I'm going to model it), and were used not only for carrying the drums, but also to haul general supplies, sheet metal, firefighting equipment. So I'm sure they would look at home on any 009 layout to be honest!

And so onto layout news!

As you can see from the photo below, progress has been made on more boards than just the Ashlett Creek board. In this photo, the basic landform shape has been carved out of the polystyrene one of the refinery boards. The gradient here so far isn't smooth (as can be seen by the bit of track holding parts of the line up!), and I'm wondering what to use to combat this. Originally the track was going to be on a ply trackbed, but I think instead I will be doing with either polyfilla, some sort of tube of sealant etc, or maybe something I haven't yet thought of!

The photo below shows the next days progress with the initial shape of the bunds and salt water effluent flumes carved out/added.

It also shows nicely just how big the power house will be!

I have also been designing a possible fiddle yard for the layout. This is loosely based on the design I originally had on the very first Calshot layout! I like to call it a "travertable" because it combines two fiddle yard designs - the traverser and the turntable. This will not be very long (the "table" probably being around 40cm). Put simply, whole trains on both the standard gauge and narrow gauge can be aligned to an fiddle yard road, and even turned around completely where needed. As train lengths are kept to a minimum (it is a small layout afterall!), this design shouldn't be cumbersome at all. It means that you shouldn't have to handle the stock too much, which in my opinion is very important.

I also got around to ordering the track, and Dad and I immediately set to work wiring up the point motors to connector blocks as we were taught for Calshot! I won't go into detail on this (You can find out more on this blog post) but instead I will show you the end result:

The ply trackbed has also been started and mostly cut out. Of course, nothing is fixed yet whilst I work out exactly where I need to make holes for the point motors:

And progress has also been made on the structures for the layout. Firstly, we have the A.B.H plant with its initial shell:

And also The Jolly Sailor is starting to take shape:

Not only that, but the first half of the supports for the jetty have been made out of air drying clay. I just used a simple plasticard former which was pressed into the clay...

...carefully levered out, and hey presto:

...one of 8 legs ready for sanding, painting, and weathering!

And the progress didn't stop there, oh no! Let's see how the jetty board is coming along:

I decided to do away with the polystyrene for the base of the sea, and instead add a 4mm ply top. This should make it stronger but still lightweight than the original polystyrene! You can also make out the beginnings of the salt marshes. In the end I decided to have only one crane on the jetty, as the prototypical 2 would no longer look correct given the proximity of the jetty to the salt marsh!

And finally onto yesterdays progress - the narrow gauge steam locomotive shed. This little lot took about 9 hours to do yesterday! I found a sharper blade than the one I was using previously. Being one of the only buildings to have an interior, I felt it important to go all out on its construction:

Well, there we go. All up to date! I probably won't leave it quite so long to update you all next time, as typing one long post with images to find as well is a nightmare! Next jobs on the list include fixing the trackbed, and maybe even starting to lay the track. I will also be adding the clay to the jetty board which will be quite fun I'd imagine.

If you made it this far, well done!

Jam.