The Bridges are Coming!

Well, I have been out of town for a week, but having gotten home last night, the Bridges are coming today!

Before I left, I cam back and did a little more rock work on the top of the mountain over the tunnel. It still needs some additional paint work, but I like the new rock work.

You notice that the rock work has boards behind it, which is because I have posed the fascia boards around the layout.

Once trimmed and finished, they dramatically improve the look of the layout. The backdrop, which is made of a piece of polystyrene sheet will be glued to the inside of the rear panels. Notably, the water and the buildings still need some paint work.

Fortunately, my trip was beneficial, since it was to England. I brought back some images to help further define the layout. My trip was to the southern part of England, around Bath and Lyme-Regis. But I feel good about some of the ideas I came back with, even though I've planned this layout to be a bit more Scotland than the southwest coast of England. Since the layout is more representational than a specific prototype setting, I will settle for a correct feel, if not an exact reproduction.

The first train my wife Liz and I caught was at Basingstoke. This is the run from London Waterloo to Exeter on Southwest Rail. From there we went to Axminster, and then by car to Lyme Regis where we stayed with my Second Cousins. Up the coast from Lyme Regis, we visited several small towns, including Beer. Ahh, I think I have a name for my town! The beach at Beer looks like this right now. Most of the boats are out of the water for the winter.

What caught my eye was the cliffs, and the cliffs of my little layout.

See the resemblance on the left? I need some green on the layout, but I can handle that. Furthermore, the visit to The Cobb at Lyme Regis led me to toss my old harbor plan, deciding instead to do something more like The Cobb as you can see in the two panoramic shots below.

The Cobb is a large seawall, protecting an anchorage, a customs house/dock, and the beach at Lyme Regis. Perfect idea for the layout. A full scale model would need about a square foot, a bit too much for the layout I have, but definitely something I could scale down and still be impressive. So, the old harbor plan is gone, to be replaced by the new Beer Cobb, inspired by the actual Cobb. And like Beer, Lyme Regis has its own cliffs...

More on the Beer Cobb and the bridge prototypes pictures tomorrow!