But I didn’t.  I often visit this excellent show with an old work colleague, but he decided not to go this year.  I didn’t want to fight the Saturday crowds, and Sunday not only were there loads of railway engineering works, but I was leading morning service and then refereeing the church AGM.  I gather it was the usual good display.

However, my weekend was well spent progressing my N-mod modules.  Last week was a busy one, but I completed the buildings needed for one half of the layout.  Some of the buildings came from the Farish range, but I had an enjoyable time making up the Ratio kits for the war-time signal box, and the characteristic Southern concrete platelayer’s huts.  The signal box has a full interior, but it’s hard to see unless the light is right.

For the other half of the layout, I decided to have an industrial area.  Walthers US kits and my gloat cupboard came to my rescue here.  The left hand building is a low relief office/factory building, but with the ground floor removed so that the buildings will fit when the boards are folded in two.  The right hand one is a lucky build, really.  A few weeks ago, I sold on my Walthers modular sets of industrial building parts that I had picked up years ago.  They didn’t make a specific building, and I didn’t think that I would use them.  But now I needed a large industrial building…..

Fortunately, I had missed the largest set of parts, that made a complete building in a variety of configurations.  I mixed and matched the brick panels – looking quite like UK buildings – to make a low relief structure.  I would have liked to have used the pitched roof included, but it was badly warped, so I took the easy route and used a flat roof.  The end result is less than perfect, and the camera is cruel, but it makes an impressive large structure to fill one end of the boards.

Next task will be to begin the ground coverage, and think again about the removable tunnel section over the central hinges.  All to be complete (or nearly complete) by April 9th and the ESNG exhibition.

And finally, I came across this fairly accurate portrait…..