Terraforming.

Of course, I've not just been making trees. All this time I've been messing around with blocks of polystyrene, slicing them up to make them look like hills. To come up with some kind of landscape for the layout. The real Hitsu is in a tree lined valley. So I decided that was the way I wanted to go. It wasn't as easy as I thought translating what is in reality a fairly straight railway line into an oval and developing the scenery around that. In the end I came up with something I was happy with.

Here we are then, the start of 4' x 14" of rural Japan. The polystyrene has been cut and crudely shaped to form the hills that dominate the layout. I suppose they could have been taller but I still have to cover them with trees yet. The polystyrene was then covered with lightweight spackling and once dry given a coat of woodland scenics earth undercoat. 

Trains will appear from the right from behind some trees curving around, passing a level (grade) crossing and arrive at the station. On pulling away from the station the train will negotiate a slope upwards before rounding the curve and disappearing out of sight behind the hill covered treeside. The 40 trees I have made so far aren't going to make much of a dent on this layout.

You may look at some of the slopes and angles and think that they are a bit steep and even but like I say most of this will be hidden under forestry.

Well If I have more trees to build I'd better get going .

I'll catch you all later