Rail200 - hospital buildings

More progress with the buildings. Having completed the engine shed, at the other end of the layout I wanted to represent the hospital utility buildings, a stores/goods inwards and a boiler house/bunker. The cereal-packet mock-ups have helped check the overall size and placement, and decide the key dimensions. 

As with the engine shed, Wills building sheets are the main material including more from the Craftsman engine shed kit, although brickwork and arched windows are from extra packs. I hadn't realised the Craftsman kit had stretcher bond brickwork, but the additional pack of arched windows and extra brickwork I'd bought were English bond. No, I don't suppose anyone will notice, but I'll try and stick to the same bond for any building!

The usual techniques are used - score and snap straight cuts, drill and fretsaw out windows and curves, and use a big file to square or chamfer ends. Not forgetting to nick the courses into the exposed edges at windows and raised brickwork.

Thanks to the mock-up, it wasn't too hard to mark and cut out the pieces like a jigsaw.

With the parts assembled, including raised brick trim and arches, the façade starts to take on the character of a Victorian municipal building. I've also added a goods platform to the front. The upstairs windows used those in the arched windows set, the ground floor has doors made from planked plastic and a window from a Dornplas set.

The height restriction left little choice for the roof. No space for any kind of pitched slate roof, but a flat roof didn't seem right. I had just enough space for a very shallow pitch metal covered roof, lead perhaps, which was simply made from plastic sheet, microstrip seams, and rod ridge. Brick capping comes from the Wills building details set. Note the off-cuts bracing the corners and the black plastic floor to hold the shape. 

In place on the layout, showing how the door is just large enough for a railway wagon, with the goods platform outside. Next up, the boiler house, which thanks to the location against the backscene, only has two walls...

There's another arched window, a big door to use the Craftsman engine shed doors, and to add a bit of interest, a circular vent in the gable. You'd think just 2 walls makes it easy, but there's so little holding it together at the corner it was quite tricky to assemble, and there's not much holding it square!

The roof would have been really difficult without the mock-up, which I could take measurements from. The result is a reasonably neat fit against the backscene. Balancing it on the two walls is a bit tricky...

Together on the layout the buildings have different shapes and sizes to make them more interesting, but share a common style. I'm pleased with how the buildings have progressed so far, they can absorb a lot of time and will be a key aspect of the layout, using the Wills sheets and arched windows has enabled reasonably rapid progress. A few details remain (downpipes, fitting of doors) and of course they have all yet to be painted. 

Track painting

Painting track is a bit of a tedious job but makes the world of difference to the realism of the layout. Fortunately, this is a very small layout - albeit rather packed with track.

Although I often use acrylics these days, I used enamels for the rail sides, I think they're likely to stick better and be harder wearing. The colour of rails can vary but they tend to be a dirty brown with an orangey-red tint, but rarely orange, as they are coated with a mix of deep rust, brake dust, and dirt thrown up from the ground and ballast. Here I mixed Humbrol colours in a small jar, with just a drop of thinners to help the mix flow. The brush is run along the rail sides coating both the rail and the rail fixings on the sleepers, including points but not where blades meet stock rails.

The 3-way point had the rails diverging to the disconnected route painted on their tops too, to reflect them being out-of-use. Excess paint is wiped of the rail top with kitchen towel, and when dry, a fibreglass stick is used to properly clean the rail head. 

The shiny sleepers need toning down too. Sleepers seem to be a grey-brown colour, so I mixed cheap artists acrylics - white with a drop of black and brown for a pale grey-brown. I used a cheap stiff flat brush - meant for kids, but even a 4-year old would find this one poor quality - filled with paint but with the excess wiped off on the palette. It's not dry brushing, which takes ages, but using a stippling motion angled towards the rails I applied the paint lightly. This leaves some of darker brown plastic showing through and the grain effect is highlighted, and allows the paint to be pushed around the rail fixing leaving that rusty brown. You can see from the paint left on the board surface the light stippled application. This proved to be relatively quick and quite effective.

While working on the track I cut away some sleepers from within the engine shed, and cut out the 3mm foamboard within it, to give the impression of an inspection pit. This was painted dark grey-black to make it look deeper than it is, along with the gaps between the sleepers where they will be under a floor so white doesn't show in the flangeways. 

Wessex NG Modellers Open Day 2025

Yesterday the Wessex Narrow Gauge Modellers held an open day, a rather smaller affair than the Narrow Gauge South exhibition held by the same group on "even" years. However, the community hall venue had two rooms allowing a good number of 009 (and HOe/HOn30) layouts as well as the 009 Society sales stand and a trader. It was also an appropriate location for a community of like-minded modellers to meet, with lots of chatting going on.

The first layout I saw was Nic Arthur's Bowcombe. I've liked all of Nic's layouts and this one is no exception. The subtle scenery and detailing create an atmospheric scene.

Back to the 70's by Tim Ticknell takes an old Cyril Freezer "rabbit warren" track plan and makes it work while looking natural and plausible, and unmistakably Welsh. I love it. 

David Marshall helped his grandson Daniel to build Harringford, he said the Inglenook track plan was partly influenced by Loctern Quay. It reminds me of my son's layout Slugworth, built when he was 11, which also used adapted Metcalf kits. Viewers were invited to have a go at the shunting puzzle.

Saith Ar Hugain by Christopher Payne is built in a plastic storage box, and shows a delightful layout can be built in a very small space and easily stored.

Wissey Creek by Stuart Reeve captures the Fens with a lovely composition. 

Julian Evison's Selborne, which was built as part of a group modular scheme, but is cleverly designed to work just as well as a standalone layout.

Richard William's Gemto: Ikkehavn is a quirky layout set on an island between Denmark and Norway. Richard demonstrated that like my layout Hexworthy, despite having just four points, the layout can hold four trains...

East Quay by John Niblett

A couple of modules of the "Freem009" modular layout by the Wessex NG modellers.

Devil's Bridge by Andy Cundick, the well-known prototype modelled in the early 1900s.

Kaninchenbau is a computer-controlled slice of the Alps by Iain Morrison. Since the trains move apparently at random, I was quite lucky to capture 5 in one shot!

A great day out and I do hope it is repeated in future.