Sandy Shores - Re-designed Right-hand Scenic Section

Despite the lack of progress recently, earlier on in the week I did cut off the right hand jetty. Before I even had plans to change it to a more substantial stone structure, I thought it would be easier to remove it completely since the ply track bed was not the right shape. Happily this also saved time today when it came to making the rest of the changes.

With that now out of the way, I added a softwood block under the end of the trackbed and a single screw held it all in place. So jumping forward to the progress made today. Sometimes you just have to destroy stuff to make things better!  The area to be removed was marked out and the clearance for road vehicles was checked by the loco shed lean-to before going any further. You'll also note in the photo below that I've had to add a "hook" to the new breakwater to fit the crane on.

Now comes the destructive stage! A large area of polystyrene and filler was removed using a small saw and the residual glue scraped off.

To make sure I cut the new bit of land properly, I drew a template out of newspaper a bit larger than it needed to be so that I had enough room to make adjustments later on when it came to fitting it in place.

A while later, the new bit of land was cut out of a single bit of polystyrene - the sides chamfered around the breakwater to give it slightly sloping sides. Hopefully marking the edge slabs around the top has helped to distinguish the various features for you all. It's very difficult taking photos of something that is almost entirely white!

You'll also note that I've been cutting out some more polystyrene landforms, and if you look closely you'll see I've decided to not have the rear lean-to but have another bank there instead. I've also marked out the location of the two beach huts - you can see I've found a shed that is almost the right size to give an idea of what it'll look like.

A couple of notes - firstly the improvement doing this has made to the layout is absolutely what I wanted. It really has made a huge difference, so it was absolutely worth the effort. Anyway, once all the polystyrene is glued down I can cover the rest of the layout in filler. The breakwater and quay walls will be made out of clay, as will the concrete roadway. I've also decided not to have the road going over the loco shed track. Instead I'd like to model an area of ash covered track - seems more fitting given that locos probably have their fires dropped etc here at the end of the day.