Half way round ....

 Nice to have some dry weather at the weekends, so yesterday laid out the next section of the track up from rockery cutting and round the corner at the top - talking me past the half way point.

On the garden front, the azaleas in the top border have been moved to fill in the bottom part of the garden and a new lavender border planted. The area in front of the next section of the trackbed has been dug over.

Loco gets a makeover .....

The battery operated multi-coloured loco (mostly yellow) has been re-painted a nice mid-blue to match the wheel colour; not much other detailing apart from some coal in the coal bunker...

Engine crews...

After some more testing on my battery locos today, have been selecting some of my old 'little people' that were out in the garden to use as engine crew. Here they are at first fit....

 They are on bases so they can be removed for access etc; I'll re-paint them as required then they can be put to use. The 'multi-coloured' steam loco needs painting, so that will be the next job.

too darn wet !

Not the best of weather over the Xmas/New Year period - lots of rain and storms. I had hoped to maybe do some work on the garden railway - but the ground was too soft and waterlogged. After a good couple of days rain, had a nice puddle about an inch or more deep over the path at the bottom of the garden and filling up the garden railway trench at the top of the garden.....

Getting some track down ...

First thing done was to get some edging added, up through rockery cutting and towards the top of the garden....

 With that done, trackbed was added to rockery cutting then the track put down ...

 down towards the bottom of the garden ...

 round the bottom of the garden ...

and ending up by the signal box ....

Engineers start their inspection of the newly laid track

trying to recover some more gravel ...

I'm trying to recover more of the gravel left after the old layout was taken up to use in the new trackbed;  managed to get some together today by using an old brush - a small pile - better than nowt.

will have to try a different technique as the gravel has sunk a bit into the soil.

I had removed the smaller gravel from by the garage to use in the trackbed, leaving it looking rather bare.  A small collection of materials - already recovered gravel and edging materials await my next session of trackbed laying...

Went out today to get some gravel to match the rest of the paths in the garden and a good quarter of an hour's work had it all down and now it looks much better

New Guards Van and more progress on the trackbed ....

Firstly a guards van has finally arrived for my goods train (this item has been on pre-order since Nov 2012 - waiting for a new production batch run to me made). Well worth the wait, lovely model - must add a guard leaning on the rail at the back if I can find a suitable figure.

 Also today with a lovely sunny (but a bit cool day) continued with laying the trackbed - have now got round to the signal box.

The next phase of the trackbed laying will be up the back stretch and round the top of the garden - I'm leaving the station area for last.