Lantern Yard back on the horizon...

About 9 years ago, when we first came off the canals and back on the bank, I had a fancy for making a mini-layout.  I actually did 2.  One was a 1/32nd scale narrow gauge effort called Havengore showing a little fisheries supply line. I loved it, but it was going to be too big so I gave it to my friend, who then died shortly afterwards. I imagine his disinterested son-in-law burned it.

The other, Lantern Yard, was the earlier effort and was intended to show off some of the model cars and locos I'd made for various customers.
I have a strong dislike for 009, so was half disinclined to use 9mm track at all, but then I did rather like the 09 stuff I'd done for N-Drive and there was no getting round the fact that I'd done a large number of 0 scale model cars too.  I also like the scenic side of 0 gauge, so I knocked up a likely base to include a canal wharf and lock and a little bit of 9mm track, to be well buried, so no evidence would remain of its Peco Crazy Track origins, which is where I think my hatred of 009 began.  Also, I don't believe in "playing trains".  I.E., nothing moves on my layouts.  They are, indeed, set-pieces...little invocations of a time and place.
Ergo...Lantern Yard.

Bear in mind this is already 9 years old and damp has not been its friend!

Canal wharf on the left, then a canal lock, for which gates are already made.

The well buried track will be part of the foreground to the buildings, which are a workshop in corrugated iron and a blacksmith's house. At the other end is a cafe, already made.  The boat will be the all pearwood model I have half made of our old boat Heather Bell, working as it normally did, as a solo motor, saving me the hassle of making a butty to go with it.  

The fact that this is coming out of hibernation tells you that despite some unseasonably late hot weather, Winter is a-comin' on, one way or tother and that's when I start to have scenic thoughts.

In the years and damp a lot of the road surface has fallen off and the hot glued card strips which form a base for the contours have also loosened.  I normally epoxy coat them, but hadn't done that this time.  They need to be changed anyway as the buildings demand a different sub-base now.

More anon.