Kistenfabrik: paving the way...

Small means quick sometimes - and my layout in a box is rapidly progressing at these early stages...

Over the past few nights I have wired it up and now have begun infilling the track. The wiring is straight forward DC - feeds to the sector plate and each of the four sidings. The three back sidings have an isolating switch which will be located in the warehouse roof. The front track with the point allows isolation by switching the point in the opposite direction, so a train can be parked in either of the legs.

Once this was thoroughly tested (obviously!) by Elly and I we moved quickly onto adding paving. First of all I used magic tape to seal the edges, before mixing up some Woodland Scenics 'Smooth it' which is a very fine plaster that can be mixed and poured with good results. If you get it runny enough it finds it's own level, and you just need to tease it up to the edges of the rails and sleepers. What you can see in the first picture is some wet sections, some dry. As the surface dried I have removed plaster from behind the rail and down to sleeper level so that trains run.

The second photo shows the current state of play. The plaster is curing nicely, I intend to lightly sand it down before deciding whether to add a second coat - my concern is that is may dry to quickly to get a smooth surface, but there are some imperfections between the rails in places. Hopefully my order of scenic items arrives next week so I can plan fencing locations. Next up after the road surface is to finish the buildings so they can be bedded in. More soon...