Illumination

I have some lamps that I will shortly be adding to the platform at Hexworthy, and I had thought it would be nice to add lighting to the station building too - after all, there's no point in the platform lamps being the only source of light. I'd added the DC voltage regulator connected to the 16V AC supply via a switch on the control panel when I wired up the playground, and I had some assorted LEDs and resistors to hand.

To complement the platform lamps I thought there should be lighting under the canopy. I had some tiny surface-mount LEDs (SMLED) with wires attached, the wires were passed through holes punched through the foam walls just under the canopy and the LEDs were fixed under the canopy bracing with a dot of superglue. For the indoor lights normal 3mm LEDs were used, I tried white but the colour was too stark and blue, so I settled on yellow, a bit too yellow but it looks OK. The corridor and booking office share an LED in a hole in the wall, inserted through the ceiling, while the right-hand room has an LED pushed through the wall from the old goods shed. Being made from polystyrene foam it is very easy to make holes in the walls for wires or LEDs. 

From above the lighting installation is not so neat! The rear upper roms house the connections out of sight. The power comes up in the back left corner (seen in the previous photo), and the negative is a bare single-core wire that all the LED negative wires could be connected to. This is a bit nerve racking as one downside of a polystyrene foam building is it isn't compatible with a soldering iron! The four canopy LEDs are wired from the 5-way terminal block rear right, and each have their own resistor. However, the four indoor LEDs are wired in parallel pairs sharing a resistor, mainly to save terminal block space. From the upstairs rooms an LED pokes through the wall to light the front centre room, while another serves the old goods shed via a hole in the end wall. 

In a darkened room the effect works quite well, the canopy lights are remarkably bright, the indoor lights a bit yellow but give a cosy feel. As I'd previously painted the inside walls there is little light bleed, except where I poked LEDs through holes in the walls - light seems to travel through the walls and make them glow (as seen where the goods shed meets the station). Some black paper or foil around the sides of the LED might stop this. 

I then had an idea. Could I put a light inside the phonebox? Well it seems with one of the SMLEDs it isn't that hard! Here the LED is glued to a square of black paper (to stop the top of the phonebox glowing), the wires bound in heat-shrink to protect them and keep them stiff. 

Installation needed a hole drilling through the clay base, then punching through the polystyrene landscape and foam-core board. The wire was then passed through and connected up underneath, and the phonebox glued in place. 

The result works quite nicely. Being a plastic phonebox it does glow through the red, although it isn't so obvious to the eye as it looks in this photo. I may go for a bigger resistor to dim it a little. I like the way this is largely hidden by the water tower from some angles, but comes into view as a splash of red in daylight or now as a glowing beacon in the dark - rather like real old phoneboxes did. 

Growing trees - Part 3

I'd meant to post pictures of the completed trees planted on the layout once they were done, but shortly afterwards I went down with Covid, and I have only now got around to this update!

Since the baseboard is foam-core board and landscape is expanded polystyrene covered in a PVA-soaked tissue and tile grout skin, planting the trees is easy. A dental probe is used to punch a hole through the hard skin of the scenery after which the tree can be "planted", it's wire "root" pushing easily through polystyrene and foam-core. The wire and base of the trunk are coated with matt modge-podge to hold it and if needed gound cover is pushed out the way to allow the trunk to sit on the landscape, any gaps being disguised with a little extra ground foam scatter. 

The right-hand end of the layout now looks quite wooded, as is the intention since the river valleys are filled with trees. Although the trees form a row only one tree deep the use of denser foliage on trees in the centre suggest the woodland is more dense than it actually is. One tree sits at the front adding depth to the scene and acting as a view-blocker, while the trees at the right-hand end very effectively screen the track exit. With the tree at the front too, the exit is not easily visible even looking along the layout. 

You may notice some flowers and grass tufts have been added, the flowers adding a welcome splash of coulour but hopefully in a subtle way while the tufts add more variety to the grassy areas. 

At the left hand end a couple of large trees break up the scene and help disguise the compressed road, the tree at the rear having more dense foliage. I added some commercial poplar trees behind the station where there is a narrow embankment, hopefully adding some visual interest. 

The playground is now fully assembled and set into the scene, and backed by trees to give a woodland effect. It has gained a fence (Ratio) and some gates. The rear fence is attached to the playground sub-base while at the front it is fixed to the embankment, which along with the low undergrowth completely disguises the edge of the sub-base. The playground surface has a brown scatter representing the bark chippings that once seemed popular for such playgrounds. Some flowers (pansies?) line the embankment and there appear to be some bluebells in the woods. 

At the right-hand end the trees can be seen to hide the exit track, while the tree at the front frames a scene around the bridge. My wife observed that the tree at the front has become a regular feature of my layouts, including Loctern Quay and Awngate! At the rear a tree by the stream both disguises the join in the backscene and casts a shadow where the stream meets the backscene. Grass tufts can be seen in the fields too. 

Growing trees - Part 2

 Another method of adding foliage to the trees is to use a fibrous material and a separate scatter material.

I think my fibrous material came from Green Scene although I don't see it listed now, the Woodland Scenics polyfibre looks similar. The leaves can use any scatter material, I use a fine ground foam from various sources. 

The fibre is applied in a similar way to the foliage matting, but there are differences. I tended to cut off a chunk and tease out to a large "cloud", then cut smaller pieces from it to attach to the tree, using matt modge podge. This material is teased out to a much greater extent than foliage matting, taking up many times its initial volume.

The fibres fill out the tree shape, effectively providing the twigs without leaves. I suppose it looks like a winter tree, although the transition between the plastic branches and the fine fibres looks rather abrupt. At this stage the tree is sprayed liberally with hairspray and the chosen scatter applied, sprinkled from all sides - including from below, but mainly from above and the sides. A repeat hairspray application and scatter make sure the covering is secure and even.

The result is a more bulbous tree with a relatively dense covering of leaves, although the leaves are around the outside of the tree shape and not through it - as often seen on real trees. I guess the foliage could be less dense if the fibres are teased out even more, although if that leaves the fibres visible I find the result less convincing. 

In this tree line-up tree one (on the left) uses Woodland Scenics dark green foliage, two uses Heiki-flor foliage in light green, tree four (far right) uses Woodland Scenics mid green foliage, but tree three (third from left) uses the fibres and foam scatter as shown above. The resulting different shape of the foliage adds variety, and the denser foliage can be useful when using the tree to block out a background or give the appearance of more dense woodland. It is also useful to be able to use a wider range of scatter material colours and textures. 

Growing trees - Part 1

Hexworthy sits in a valley which hosts many trees, in fact some parts by the river are densely wooded. That means I'd need trees, and quite a lot of them. While I have made trees using the traditional (and effective) twisted wire method, it takes a long time - and my results weren't always that good. However, I have discovered Woodland Scenics "tree armatures", plastic mouldings for trees 5 to 7 inches tall, a pack contains 12 in 4 designs. 

The procedure I use is as follows:

• Cut off the base, any moulding lines and release marks
• Drill the base "peg" to accept a piece of straightened paper-clip wire, superglued in place. Drilling has to be done slowly and in brief bursts as the plastic melts easily, binding the drill
• Now the armatures are dunked in boiling water for a few minutes, this warms the plastic making it more malleable. 
• Remove and shake/dab off excess water, taking care not to get scalded - but the tree itself won't be too hot to touch
• Now twist the trunk. I grip at the lowest set of branches (sometimes pliers helps) and at the next set of branches up and firmly twist through about 60 degrees. Repeat at the next set of branches up, and the next... it gets easier as the trunk tapers. Each 60 degree (ish) twist means branches now fan out all around the tree
• Each branch then is then shaped and has its own branches twisted to hopefully natural shapes that fill the space

This is actually quite easy, although the pointy branches are not kind to the thumbs. 

The next step was to paint the trunks, mainly to try and get rid of the plasticky look. I mixed a colour close to that of the plastic so any bits not covered wouldn't stand out, with a little matt modge podge in with the acrylic paint to help it stick and stay matt. A thinner darker wash was run into the texture of the trunks although to be honest it made little difference. Maybe spraying would have been quicker, probably dry-brushing with different colours would have given a better effect but taken much longer...

Placing on the layout helps to figure out what trees will fit where, and is an encouragement. A hole is punched through the top layer of scenery and the wire "root" pushed into the foam below. 

Foliage can come from different sources, but the Woodland Scenics foliage works well, as does the similar Heiki-Flor foliage. Small pieces are cut then teased out in all 3 dimensions - tweezers help - to get a delicate spread. This is then threaded onto a branch covered with a little matt modge podge. In the process a lot of the foam "leaves" fall off, so when the tree is complete it is sprayed liberally with hairspray and the fallen leaves sprinkled back on. 

The effect works well, surprisingly well given it's ease, and can result in pleasingly light and delicate foliage - although the density of the tree depends how much foliage is applied and how far it is teased out. While not exactly quick - I guess the whole process takes about 2.5-3 hours per tree in total - these trees are much quicker to make than completely hand-made trees and look far better than most shop-bought trees. 

The London festival of railway modelling

On Saturday helped man the 009 Society stand at the London festival of railway modelling at Alexandra Palace. It's a long trip from Sussex needing a very early start and a late return, but it was good to see so much interest in 009. I'm sure the recent increase in the availability of ready-to-run has encouraged many to take an interest since getting started and building a decent layout is so much easier now. As well as the showcase, demo layout (which being a roundy-roundy at table height attracts the younger kids!), we had some copies of the 009 Society Handbook for sale - all had gone by mid-afternoon Saturday. There were lots of families, and it was also nice to see a range of ages showing interest, we may not see many younger (sub-40!) people in clubs but clearly they are interested in the hobby, one young man commenting that his generation couldn't expect to have a house in London but 009 looked suitable for a small space. 

It's a big show but with two of us to man the stand we each had opportunity to look around, and it was good to see some old faces to chat to. Of course there are layouts for all interests, and I was pleased to find a few narrow gauge layouts. I didn't get a program so don't have all details.

Bunkers Lane in O9 is a new layout Bill Flude on the same theme as his Derwent Road layout (I last saw that at Fareham), inspired by the Leighton Buzzard Railway. 

There's some lovely, subtle detailing and the setting of place and time work really well. 

It was also nice to see Charlie Insley's French St-Etienne-en-Caux in H0e. 

The terminus is reminiscent of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. 

Hook Basin by Richard Williams uses 1:25 scale and 16.5mm gauge to great effect, a simple yet engaging layout built in two "modules". This layout was also at Fareham last year. Richard pointed out the layout was over a decade old, although I still enjoy seeing it!

WWI Winter in France shows the military railways of the first world war in 009. Nice modelling of something we should never forget. 

Richard Holder's Launceston is a superb model of the characterful preserved line in 009, a favourite of mine it had a crowd around it until late afternoon so clearly it was popular. 

I also spotted this model of a Lartigue monorail tractor as used on a US mining line, and featured in Narrow Gauge and Industrial magazine, so I presume shown by the builder Adrian Garner. Yes, it does work and movement was demonstrated!

Of the standard gauge layouts, one that surprised me was James Street. It's a large N-gauge layout with multiple tracks and trains circulating - which doesn't sound like my kind of layout. However, the scenery was beautifully done even if it was squeezed between the tracks, and the harbour scene with it's detailed ships was impressive. Not just one model ship, but many of them. 

Copper Wort by Pete Goss is always a popular layout, and always worthy of another look. 

Arcadia is clearly inspired by Colonel Stevens' light railways, and modelled in S scale. This is a scale that isn't chosen for any logical reason, other than the builder wants to scratch-build as much as possible, and so is worthy of respect. Usually, as in this case, the result looks superb and performs well too. 

Next to our stand was this model of Moretonhampstead in 2mm scale. It is hard to believe it is such a small scale, it looks like P4 from stood further back!

So a large and busy show, with some excellent layouts, and nice to be back for the first time post-Covid. If the train strikes reduced numbers it wasn't obvious. 

Wealden Railway Group exhibition - Steyning

On Sunday I visited the Wealden Railway Group exhibition in Steyning. This group's show was the last show I attended before Covid, which was the first show I exhibited Loctern Quay at, so it was nice to see the show return. This time both the halls of the Steyning Centre were used making space for more layouts, but also more space around them, at least in some places (often the show has felt quite crowded). 

The larger hall seemed poorly lit so some layouts without their own lighting were difficult to see and photograph, but here are a few shots I did get. Also, no show guide so details are from what I know or can remember.

Rhiw by Chris Ford, his usual "less is more" style applied to "modern" standard gauge, and a second version of the same theme. 

Largarand Limeworks in On30, compact but interesting with double-sided viewing. 

Simon Hargreaves showed is lovely little inglenook, which has developed scenically since I last saw it last year. 

A top view of Simon's tiny layout which fits in a box on the back of his motorbike!

Ian Roberts showed his 1:32 scale 16.5mm gauge model of the Dalmunzie railway, this was a new layout although I'd seen a previous layout of his based on the same theme, albeit more loosely. 

This nicely modelled and presented little micro is, according to Chris, a Czech layout in TT by Alan Monk.

There was a diorama competition, both these two entries were by Giles Barnabe. I like them both, but the street scene is probably my favourite. 

Undergrowth, bushes and hedges

Last time I described making bushes, but undergrowth and weeds do not always form bushes. I've found an easy way to represent low weed growth. This started when applying the static grass, by building layers of longer (4mm and 6mm) grass. 

Then the grass is wiped with a brush loaded with just a little of the matt modge podge, so a little collects on the tips. The matt medium dries clear and (obviously) matt so any that would be left visible dries invisible. 

Scatter material of the ground foam variety is sprinkled onto and dabbed into the grass, where it sticks to the tips. I find a slightly darker shade than the surrounding grass works well, and sometimes use two or more shades. 

Here's a general shot of the right-hand end of the layout showing a variety of undergrowth and bushes on the river banks and the railway cutting sides. Of course, there is little undergrowth beyond the fence where sheep roam! The cocktail sticks are marking the eventual position of trees. 

There's a good growth of bushes along the riverbank too, though not obscuring the view of whatever may be in the siding or the station. I've tried to get a variety of sizes, textures and shades, but using a limited palette so none stand out. 

Behind the station there is a pleasing mix of untidy hedgerow and the post-and-wire fence, with bushes and undergrowth in front and around the back of the playground. There should be space for the odd tree too. Hopefully this makes a reasonably convincing transition from model to backscene. Now I just need to vacuum up, and crack on with some trees.