Short daylight hours and windy weather has kept me out of the shed more than I would have liked, but today I managed a decent spell in there and made some progress.



On Wombourne, I've moved the public footpath behind the old goods yard which is now occupied by the Civil Engineers and a small lock up car repairer.  I've left some of the old ballast in place, and coated the rest of the area in crackle medium.  Although it looks pink here, it dries eventually to a cafe au lait colour, and should develop cracks and pitting which, once given a slight wash of dirt, should look like cracked concrete.  The footpath has been given a coat of a similar military modeller's texture paint Agrellan Earth which should also eventually dry to a cracked, dry mud colour.  I will then add some scatter as leaf litter, weeds and grass tufts to create the kind of flasher's footpath you'd want to avoid.  Tempted to buy the 4mm scale Nude Hitler currently for sale on eBay, as a far-right extremist pervert who can be demonstrating his monorchid manhood on the footpath.  Too much?

I've tried to disguise the gap in the backscene with a batch of low relief trees from the Model Tree Company.  However, I've had to be careful on this side of the line as it would have been an operational good yard up until 1957, ten years before the first of the planned timetable sequences, so big trees were out.  Instead I've used smaller trees, bushes, shrubs and weeds to try and simulate ten years of growth in a poor soil, whilst still keeping a scenic block effect.  On the other side of the line the trees are taller as that wouldn't have been operational land.  Given you can't really hide the fact the train is vanishing behind a massive hoarding, I'm quite pleased with the effect.  Track has yet to be ballasted and the fences stuck down, I want to get the scenics done before I start ballasting in order that I can the texture paints set, and with the damp atmosphere it's all taking longer to cure.

Tunnel portals v3.0  Auhagen HO castellated single bore tunnel portals hacked about.  The castellations are a bit of a conceit to my 18x great grandad, the Earl of Dudley, who lived in Dudley Castle.  Assuming Ancestry.com is correct, which is doubtful.  Anyway, some serious hacking has delivered what I think is an effective impression of why Wednesford only has one single bi-di electrified line.  The left hand portal had to be raised and widened to accommodate the OHLE, and just inside I've recycled the Auhagen crinkly concrete shop roof panels as tunnel linings made from sheet piling (see? Never throw anything away...) whilst the right hand portal, which had been penetrated by a bomb in the blitz and rebuilt with a narrower reinforced lining couldn't be rebuilt cost effectively, so became the non-electrified portal for the freight only branch which runs along the trackbed of the former Dudley loop. Once the retaining wall is put back in on the right, and the portals weathered with the airbrush, I think I might just get away with it.  Behind the Old Market Square, I've redone the backscene. If you recall, the paper based sky papers didn't withstand the harsh shed environment, so I ended up with a plain blue emulsion applied to the ply, but I've now added the Lineside and Locos "Old Industry" backscene which, being polypropylene is damp resistant.  I decided to go for the 4mm scale one, previously I had used the 2mm scale backdrops which despite their being "N" gauge were still quite big.  However, going for the 4mm scale backdrop has added some height, giving a suggestion that the level of the land is increasing as you look across the station.  I'm quite pleased with the effect.

Going to a single platform at the back has meant some changes to the station building.  I've now combined the two Pola-Playcraft "Mod-X" stations into one, and put a small parade of lock up shops alongside.  The shops are Auhagen, but I've decided to give them a flat roof rather than the crinkly concrete ones the kit comes with, which are now beneath the Market Square as a rebuilt tunnel lining.  The flat roof hasn't been glued into place yet as I want to install lighting when I have worked out how to add lighting to removable scenery modules.  The station and shops feels more correct for this type of location, a slightly more upmarket Perry Barr, although that's not exactly setting a high benchmark.

And finally...a home made backscene.  Many moons ago, nearly 20 years ago in fact, I became involved with developing first freeware, then payware add-ons for Microsoft Train Simulator 1.  Back then the computer technology was nowhere as good as today and the graphics capability of MSTS1 looks poor compared to today, but I got involved in two aspects: sound effects and paint schemes and scenery.  In order to get round some of the drawbacks of the MSTS architecture, where you didn't want to festoon your electronic model with too many polygons for fear of crashing the whole program, I developed a number of tricks using graphics packages that could replicate things like bodyside corrugations using layering and shading, which seemed to work.  Anyway, ever since I've been keen on digital art and often have a play around with photos and my own paintings and drawings just for fun.  Now the area below Wentec and to the right of the prefabs was a bit of a problem.  The idea is it was once a small engine shed and yard, hence the retaining wall on the right, but in the 1941 Blitz was totally destroyed, never re-opened and instead used for emergency housing post war, hence the prefabs.  But, I wanted to indicate their days were numbered as the march of the new high rise developments went on relentlessly.  I'd got "Euneda House" in the corner, but how to populate the remaining space?  I tried various ideas, none of which appealed, but then I hit on an idea.  Why not scan in Euneda House as a jpg., then use photo-real grass, roads and trees to give the impression of a larger estate?  The flats and maisonettes would all look to have been designed by the same architect and match in style not just "Euneda House" but also "Cylencyn" and "Crowne" Courts on the other side of the track.  So I got playing around with Paint Shop Pro, and after a trial print on paper, then printed the images out onto inkjet compatible thin plastic card, sealed it with a waterproof acrylic lacquer as further protection, and got these results.
 

They are only temporarily tacked into place pending a good dry day so I can glue them firmly into place.

I'm quite pleased with the results and being on plastic, and sealed with water resistant lacquer, they should withstand the hostile environment of the shed.  Sadly, it does mean the two prefabs are the last two remaining on the site, I had hoped to put some photo-real prefabs behind them but couldn't get it to look right, whereas the scanned in flat was just that, flat, and could be manipulated to remove any odd perspective issues.

So, as the weather is going J Arthur Rank for a few days, I'll not be able to move onto the re-installation of the repositioned OHLE and signal trunking yet, but hopefully if we get some nice calm days I might be able to finish the remaining tasks.

Nadolig Llawen i pawb.