When I started the layout the village that formed the main centre was going to be very basic. Over the past few months I have "regenerated" the main section of the village and put in new supporting walls thus creating a new open space and a village on two levels. However there was something missing. The villages in the area I am porttraying have had similar regeneration but there are often large sections that have not changed significantly in hundreds of years. Therefore I decided to move the small faller industrial building and have a go at degenerating the area and giving it a sense of history. To test this idea out before I committed a large amount of time to this degeneration I have created some balsa wood mockups of the buildings that will eventually sit in these locations:

There will be 3 main buildings that are proposed to be residential and one that is in a state of disrepair/under renovation. Due to the sheer number of projects on the go at the moment this will be put on the back burner until I have some more time. However I am keen to mimic the medievil styles of building materials that they use in this area of the world.

I recently made a purchase off ebay of some workers apartments that were originally manufactured as a kit by Arnold. They were well made and aside from a few issues with the paint I thought they looked good. However a new coat of paint made a big difference and changed this:

To this:

This building is going to be the Mairee in the village (the local government office!). It has made a huge difference to the feel of the village. Other improvements have been that the square (that is not really square) is looking neater (but rough around the edges!):

I am currently waiting paint for some of my projects but there is news of my two other new arrivals. These are some resin casts of 2 railcars 1 is the X 2400:

The other is the X 2800:

I am awaiting some chassis for these units from the USA. I am looking forward to getting them running.

Finally it is worthy of note that my train layout once again extends around my room, although this time it has been constructed to a far higher standard. I have no pictures of this yet (although I hope to make a video of this soon). However it has allowed me to get my stock out for a bit of a run:

(sorry about the quality of the last one).

As always, thanks for reading.

Stephen