Thursday 30 October 2008

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.

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3 comments:

Zabdiel said...

Congratulations!

The layout is looking good, I can get a much better idea of how it's going to look when finished now. I always like to see photos of a layout in it's suroundings too.

Anonymous said...

This is becoming a treatese on how to build a worthwhile railway in a small space and I recommend it for further study. I just hope that you keep it going until its proper conclusion and don't drop it when the new baby comes along, and I know how tempting that could be.

Michael Campbell said...

Thanks guys. I have no intention of dropping the layout when the baby arrives, actually it was designed to be quick and easy to build and being sited up on a shelf it is both out-of-reach and convenient to work on in those short moments of peace!

Plus I hope it will be reasonably complete before the baby arrives!