Beginning of a new chapter

Now that we are all somewhat settled in the new city and dealt with all the changes, it is time that we revisit Wrightsville Port and see where it stands. Overall there is not much of a difference in the overall appearance of the layout, however, I did take the advantage of this relocation to correct a few things:

• Get rid of the dust: as in case of most layouts, you generally do the dusting in prominent and easily accessible areas, and once you start detailing, it is not feasible to use the vacuum as effectively. So now that there are no models on the layout, I took the liberty to do the spring cleaning - not that the spring is very far away, so I'm good! There has been another initiative - I had to device a certain way to keep the dust off as much as possible. Given the shape of the layout is very unique (it's neither a shelf layout, nor a solid rectangle to use glass cubicles), a ready option was not really available. Till the time I figure out a better way, I made a temporary cover using transparent plastic sheets, cut along with edge of the layout. I need to play with it a little more to make it look better, but overall this serves the purpose for now:

• Organize wiring: Given the layout is meant to have extensive lighting effect, I have dedicated power lines in 3 voltage ranges - 1.5V, 3V, 6V, 12 V and a variable 6-12V (all DC) - each power lines divided into various phases to help short circuits and total blackouts. As you can understand, this means a lot of wires, and I never took the pain to arrange and label them properly owing to the fact that in order to do so, I had to dismantle the layout - till now. So wiring is revamped, categorized and more 'power hubs' created for future lights. Sorry, no photograph for this one (I am ashamed to say that it still looks pretty messy!)
• The background hill required more bushes and trees and required a smoother transition to the backdrop. I did order JTT foliage long back, but never managed to complete this task, until now:

• The dock scenes that I created remained static for quite some time, so I made some subtle changes. I used the same figures to 'move' scenes or make some minor changes for the sake of variation, and added a new one too:

• Finally, something that has been long due (really) - installing light in the tall hotel building. I also took the liberty to add a neon light (The previous Cafe sign being out of commission, I desperately 'needed' this animation):

And to end with this post, here is a night time view of the port. Still requires a lot of work to be done to look life like, but nonetheless, this is quite beautiful to look at!