At the entrance to Diddington station is a small loco yard. It has a small shed, and in steam days had coal, water an ashpit and turning facilities. The original idea was to model the depot as it would have appeared in the 1950's, with the loco shed in use and a small turntable to turn the steam engines. I brought the period modelled forward to the 1960,s, by which time the loco depot had been downgraded to a daytime stabling point. The shed is used as a store, and the turntable bridge has been removed, leaving only the pit, which is gradually submerging into the undergrowth.

The track plan and scenic idea for the depot were based on Huntindon East. The shed is a Prototype Models kit of the shed at Stamford. The original idea for Diddington had more of a Great Northern influence. Over time the area modelled has been moved more firmly to the East into Great Eastern Territory. The loco shed is a hangover from the original idea.

Last autumn I finally decided to work up the scenery in the area. I took some photographs of progress as I wnt along.

This is the undeveloped site:

The first stage was to complete the Turntable pit. A circular hole the diameter of the pit was cut in 2 pieces of 9mm ply. The bottom of the pit was made from a piece of thinner ply, and the whole was screwed and glued together. The detailing of the pit was done away from the layout. The sides and bottom of the pit were lined with thin card. The edging at the top of the sides was more card, and the duckboards outside this were made from pieces of Wills plastic sheet, with additional grips from bits of plastic strip.

The walls of the pit were covered with Exactoscale brick sheet. The bottom of the pit was painted dark earth, and fine ash sprinkled over to give texture. Additional bits of flock and ground foam were added to represent the beginnings of a build up of undergrowth.

This is the completed pit:

The pit was then installed on the layout. The landform was buit up with strips of card as described in an earlier blog entry. The pit was blended in with a plaster/pva mix whiich was then painted with burnt umber acrylic paint.

Grass and undergrowth from a number of sources was added. Longer, rougher grass is from hanging basket liner. Shorter grass is from flock, applied with a puffer bottle. (Since I started, Black Rat came round with his Grassmaster, and I suspect the days of the puffer bottle may be numbered.) Bushes are foliage reclaimed from scrapped trees. Typically, the basic shape is teased out from theatrical hair to make the branches. The branches are sprayed with cheap (non-scented, strong hold) hairspray. Meanwhile some foam leaves are put in a polythene bag. The branches, once sprayed, are dropped in the bag with the leaves and the bag is shaken, which coats the sticky braches with the "leaves". The completed bush is then ready to place on the layout.

The area now looks like this.

I still need to build a buffer stop and disused coal stage, and to complete the ertaining wall at the back of the yard, and hopefully these developments will be in the next instalment.