Hydraulic Heaven

That looks very effective.

 

Best wishes to you

 

Don

I like it! Looks like 1963.

 

Lisa

That looks very effective.

 

Best wishes to you

 

Don

 

I like it! Looks like 1963.

 

Lisa

 

Thanks Both.

 

The inspiration for this scene came from a Peter Gray photo in 'Heyday of the Warships' of D827 on a threatening snowy day at Torre. I've borrowed the snow, the coal wagons and tried to get the general mood but have not tried to reproduce the exact scene because I can't run long passenger trains at South Yard.

 

I have just checked the caption again and by coincidence (I won't claim any more than that)... February 1963!

 

Regards, Andy

Nice Andy

 

Is that a permanent weather change or will it thaw?

 

Must say, it works very well for this layout

Nice Andy

 

Is that a permanent weather change or will it thaw?

 

Must say, it works very well for this layout

 

Thanks Pete. This is definitely temporary, in fact it has already thawed - one of the things I wanted to find out was how well the stuff would clean up afterwards and for the most part you wouldn't know it had been there. Some bits of coal are looking a bit grey and will need some re-doing although some other kinds of coal have cleaned up just fine. I guess it's down to the porosity of the different types of coal.

 

I did think about doing it permanently but I think that the novelty would wear off and with South Yard being used frequently the white stuff would probably get a bit grubby, so on balance it will probably remain snow free most of the time.

 

Regards, Andy

Fantastic work Andy, it's making me shiver just looking at it!

 

What did you use to represent the snow?

 

Andy

Fantastic work Andy, it's making me shiver just looking at it!

 

What did you use to represent the snow?

 

Andy

 

Thanks Andy. It's probably overkill for a temporary effect like this but I used 'Precision Snow' for the job. This stuff is intended to be used with an adhesive for making permanent effects but I didn't want to do that so I needed to experiment a bit. In particular I found that the sieve provided did not give a sufficiently even snowfall - instead I got a result much like I got when sieving the icing sugar into a mixing bowl for our Christmas cake.

 

My improvised solution was a cheap tea strainer with some items of old clothing scrounged from Mrs D869 stretched over it. The material is like tights are made from but they are actually some sort of cut down socks. The advantage of this stuff is that you can stretch the material to vary the mesh spacing until you get enough going through but without losing the finesse of the dust... which is very fine indeed so I took precautions to avoid inhaling any stray dust during sprinkling operations.

 

Given that the stuff was loose I also avoided any actual running until after a heavy hoovering - I really don't want this stuff getting mixed with the oil in gears and bearings.

 

There are cheaper alternatives - usually food based like cream of tartar or baking soda. I can't vouch for either of these options though.

 

Regards, Andy

Thanks Andy - I'd not come across 'Precision Snow' before. Definitely worth investigating further.

 

Regards,

 

Andy