Well, after about 6 weeks I've pretty much got the hidden line working - all track is fixed in position and fully wired. Some minor tweeks to the level will be required, hence the blue clamps visible in the photo, but once I'm happy with everything the final screws will replace these useful devices.
The first train to test the gradient consisted of 30 MGR hoppers behind one of the original Mainline Class 56s, a model that has quite impressive haulage capabilities despite it's seemingly crude mechanism. I find equivalent products from Hornby & Lima entirely useless for shifting realistic trains up even moderate gradients, but the curiously lightweight 56s are consistently dependable workhorses.
Something I always struggle with is train lengths. What is prototypically correct doesn't necessarily look right on a layout and some fiddling is normally required to produce a convincing effect. I'm not happy with any of the freight rakes I've assembled so far - the intermodals appear too long, for example, while the JGAs look too short. The merry-go-round coal trains, as seen here, fortunately aren't that far off the mark.