A Model Railway Corner

First a picture of the layout in it's surroundings. This layout has been built to live in the dining room and fit as part of the furniture, which I think it does well, though the Ply could do with staining to match. However the recent change has been that I have acquired the shelves above for my railway books (well, mostly). With the bureau cupboard storing my modelling bench, toolbox, and some materials, it is virtually a model-railway corner!

The reason behind the reorganisation is that we are expecting a second child in April - and that of course means the spare bedroom will be required! There will be more sorting out, decorating and DIY to come I'm sure! It also means that the deadline for the Sussex Downs members day (7th March) is more important, as after that I'm likely to have less modelling time for a while ...

The second picture shows the advantage of having the layout so accessable, that working on it is so easy, even just an hour or two at a time. Here the layout is slid forward and the lighting beam removed, to make it easy to work on. I've recently formed the gravel and cinders yard areas made from layers of sand and painted them with acrylics, then formed the the contours of the small parts of land not rail, buildings or yard, with polyfilla/powder paint and newspapers over the polystyrene. As shown in the photo the first layer of grass scatter has been applied too, so the scenery is really progressing.

EXPO-NG 2008

I had a great day out at EXPO-NG today. This year I was not exhibiting a competition entry, or any other layout or stand for that matter! So I could enjoy the show. Some superb layouts as always, and plenty of 009 layouts. You can see all my photos here

It was good to meet some friends too, and see the competition entries for the 40x25 challenge. I didn't hear who won, but there were some original ideas as always.

I picked up a few odds and ends, but I didn't spend too much money. Well, apart from one thing that is! I put a deposit down on a Paul Windle Hunslet 0-6-0. The down-side is that Paul is so busy that I will have to wait until next May before I see it! In the meantime, here's a picture of the "demo" model:

Backscene and factory yard

As the picture above shows, the factory and yard is largely complete now. The Metcalfe buildings have had a fair bit of work (painting visible card at the corners etc.) but they do look good, I think. The wall and yard gate are made using the extra brick-paper and doors supplied with the kits, the gate-posts are styrene and painted to match. A gate across the siding will be fitted at some point.

Mike Beard pointed out that the cobbles should run parallel to the tracks, however being a cramped and oddly-shaped site this would have been very fiddly to arrange, plus the track is not quite straight. However the cobbles are parallel to the buildings and those between the rails parallel to the rails, I think it looks OK. And I took great care to ensure the surface is just below the rail tops - even outside the rails! They were painted grey with enamels and then given a couple of washes of green/black acrylic, wiped away to represent dirt between the setts.

Both pictures show the completed backscene, using Townscene backgrounds. Some of the foreground buildings are mounted on card and stand slightly proud of the backscene proper. Any edges are blackened. They do seem to blend well with the buildings as I had hoped, although the town is looking larger and more important than I had envisaged!