The grass is always greener

As scenery starts to flow, the engineer in me tends to stand aside and make way for the bearded, smelly artist who will season the layout to taste.

Speaking of seasons, while I loved Wassen in the winter, building a convincing snow scene isn't something I would consider for my first foray into Z. So... something with blue skies, green grass and leaves on the trees it will be.

After venturing to the local hobby shop - which maintains a tiny, but useful selection of scenery items - I elected to buy the items they had in stock and start planting grass.

The 2-3 layers of glueshell (PVA white glue and old phonebook pages) seems to be strong enough and has actually stiffened up the layout overall torsion-wise even though its only 2/3rd completed.

So I brushed on diluted PVA and sprinkled on some Peco Meadow Grass with a touch of their Spring Grass which is a little lighter in colour as a base layer. It's a little odd using this fairly dated 'dyed sawdust' type of scenic material that we once used decades ago before Woodland Scenics (etc) got more creative. Isopropyl Alcohol was dribbled on to settle the stuff on steep slopes before more diluted PVA was dripped on with a plastic pipette.

Golly, it's very green. As if someone less conservatively dressed than I left their crushed velvet blazer on the layout. But then Switzerland is a pretty green place too.

The passenger approaches Wattinger curve; an intermodal heads up the middle level above the town and will cross the Middle Meienreuss bridge shortly; and a couple of covered wagons near the Command Post on the upper level.

Wattinger

Middle Meienreuss bridge (minimalist edition)