Ground cover taking shape on Canute Road Quay, now that the wiring is complete

I thought it was about time I posted an update on some progress on my new little timesaving / timewasting project Canute Road Quay. Since my last post here that spoke of the wiring commencing and the completion of the fiddle yard   and a slightly earlier one about the buildings and inset track starting to take shape progress has been ticking along.

Wiring

I am pleased to advise that all the main wiring has now been completed and fully tested with track feeds, points (Cobolt point motors), frog feeds and the Dingham electromagnets for uncoupling all working as they should.
I have added a couple of DROK voltage regulators, one for the Cobolt point motors to give a smooth 9V DC supply, as I have found that they work much better and quieter with such a regulated supply; and also one to control the voltage to the yet to be fitted street lamps and a few interior lights within some of the buildings,  enabling me to easily control the voltage to give the most appropriate brightness levels once installed.
It has been both fun and reassuring at this stage to be able to run a loco or two and shunt a few vans around.

Inset track and ground cover

The final layer of cork sheeting has been put in place in the areas where the track is inset and last weekend I made a start on the other terrain areas such as the areas just off the inset track, roadways and also to represent the basic earth / ash style unkempt ballast (rather than stone chips) of the non inset track areas, using air drying modelling clay.
To apply the clay I first apply a thin layer of PVA glue to the baseboard surface to assist with the clay keying to the baseboard top.  I then simply mold the clay in place using fingers and where required smoothing down with a little water, it’s a bit messy but the inner child in me finds it fun.

To give a few further points of interest I have created a few puddles in the lower lying areas between the loop tracks and also around the water crane on the shed road. These are simply small pieces of 20 thou clear plasticard painted black in the underside and fixed in place before shaping the puddle edges with the modelling clay.
The inset track areas will now be painted using textured paint from Green Scenes to represent concrete. In addition to their concrete textured paint I also intend to use their tarmac version for the roadway in front of the public house going off to the rear of the layout and also their ‘yard filth’ and ‘general muck’ for some of the other terrain areas, once painted these areas will also receive undergrowth and static grass to complete the scene.  The coaling area in front of the small locomotive shed will also see real coal (as nothing looks more like coal than coal) and ash (real ash from my word burning stove) used to give further texture and colour.

Buildings

The low relief buildings on the backscene (which itself will form the topic of a future post) the have now been glued into place after I added black plasticard to the rear and also some partitions between the floors and rooms so that it is not possible to just see right through the buildings, especially as I intend to have a couple of rooms, such as the lounge bar of the public house internally lit.
The walls for the engine shed from Skytrex Model Railways resin parts have been assembled and received an initial all over coat of red oxide colour plastic primer to be the base for the final painting of the brickwork.

More updates to follow soon…