Liddy's Blog

Hello Liddy, I began to wonder where you'd got to. Must say that I really like the scheme you've outlined above. Shops are always a favourite of mine, they're one of those things that acts to clearly define the era of a model and besides which I thoroughly enjoy creating the window displays. I'm particularly partial to the lock up shop, here's a favourite from Borth.

 

Thanks Neil, I love your shop, it's independent in so many ways, eclectic window display and not actually connected to next-door unlike almost every other building, the gap on the left is just a magnet for lurking rubbish, I can't figure-out what's in the bin, but it's one of those touches that cries out to be modelled. Makes me think of your garage, a scene with endless possibilities (well don't they always have a motley collection of dead cars in various states of decay out back) You've changed my thinking, I had reckoned on terrace houses side-on to the road and embankment, slight downward slope towards the embankment, but ideally they would be 2 house terraces for realism. I wanted them side-on to have glimpses of the loco and wagons creeping past behind their roof line to breakup the view and disguise the short train lengths, but if I went to a motley collection of independent shops I could get the same effect with less depth than would be required by the houses and I can vary the heights and the squared-off profile of an urban pub to the right of the bridge would hide the exit. I feel I need some low-relief scenery behind the railway to close-in the view and get away from the predictable flat townscape backscene, my preference is for a red brick heritage warehouse so as not to be eye-catching, getting the balance front to middle to back is going to be trial and error.

Right so! Shops not terraced houses, differing heights, widths, depths, backing on to the railway embankment, but again with a broken roof line to allow glimpses of trains (as a boy if I looked at an acute (schoolboy word) angle out of my bedroom window I could see all the way down my road 400 yards to the main road, across that to a gap between The Star and the British Leyland Rover garage and get glimpses of the mainline west of Reading) The pub will act a s a view block to the exit on the right and a basic footbridge will cover the exit stage left.