This project is a source of light relief from other projects and as I needed to clear the lathe away to make space for the airbrush in order to work on stock for the main layout, further work on the locomotive was paused. But I used the corner of the work bench and the paint drying time to make a tiny, 40cm x 10cm, display mount. The purpose of this mount was two-fold. Firstly to have something to display the loco and wagons on since a layout is a very long way off. And secondly to adapt my scenery building skills to a much larger scale than I am used to.

My eventual aim is to produce either a small layout or a set of cameo sections that suggest a small industrial tramway set in the 1920s. Like the actual Brede tramway my imagined tramway links a works with a small wharf on a tidal creek. I'm thinking more brickworks than waterworks though with the bricks being shipped on on a small sailing barge, hundreds of which plied their trade around the Thames Estuary. Like the real Brede wharf though the imaginary wharf can only take fully laden barges on the spring tides so the line to the wharf is only used a couple of days each fortnight. The surface of the rails should not be shiny, but again not as heavily rusted as the web. The loco is intended to be battery operated with radio control precisely so that this sort of rusty track can be modelled.

A short length of track is modelled here to test the track laying method. Sleepers are the sort of beech sold for beading, cut to the same dimensions as those used on the Sand Hutton Railway, i.e. 1 1/8" long, 5/32" wide and 1/4" thick representing the 3' x 5" x 4" of the prototype. The beauty of 1:32 scale is that Imperial measures can be used throughout. The modern internet was a help though in determining the dimensions of the 20 lb/yard rail used at Sand Hutton and that came out as code 80 flat bottom rail being appropriate. The rail was spiked to the sleepers, though pilot holes of 0.6mm diameter do need to be drilled first. I worked out from photos of Sand Hutton that sleepers were spaced at 30" intervals, so they were spaced here at 15/16" intervals. I assumed ash and cinder ballast and the coarser grade of ballast sold for 7mm scale gives a very nice result.

This imaginary line is assumed to run on private land without crossing public roads, i.e. not requiring a Light Railway Order or anything bureaucratic like that, so I thought the most likely route would be to skirt the edges of fields so that the main field could still be used for grazing or crops. The back edge of the display mount is therefore modelled as a hedgerow, a mature one that was already there before the tramway was built. The main scenic feature is a farm gate. The thinking is that the farmer, possibly a tenant, grazes cows in the field beyond and these need to be taken down for milking every day. That means there is a very muddy track and a boarded crossing over the tramway.

No railway runs over completely flat land, not even in Holland, so some small level changes were created using bits of foam salvaged from packaging. This was then smoothed over with Polyfilla to create the base. The churned up track was modelled by repeatedly poking a broken off cocktail stick into the wet Polyfilla. It was coloured using acrylic paints, yellow ochre and burnt sienna mostly with tiny amounts of red and blue - no white or black. I think the effect of a track churned up by livestock has been achieved.

Plans for a farm gate were found on the internet and a model made to 1:32 scale out of ply. Not the entire thickness of ply but a single layer carefully pared off. This was 1/32" thick corresponding nicely to the 1" thick dimension of timber used by the repro gate manufacturer I found on the internet. The gate was then painted with acrylics to look like weathered wood from pre-creosote days. Gateposts were made from the same beech as the sleepers but planed to be a scale 4" square.

Three techniques were used for the hedge. The core of the hedge is assumed to be something tough and resisting like hawthorn or blackthorn. This is modelled using rubberised horsehair - a good old traditional railway modelling material - pulled apart quite drastically. After shaping to fit it is sprayed with blackboard paint and then with spray glue. While the glue is still wet  the pieces are rolled around in a tub of Noch (or Gaugemaster) leaves. I blend different shades of green leaves to reduce uniformity.

I discovered by accident that polyfibre teased out very thin and then covered with Noch leaves in the same way as described makes good brambles. The final touch is to spot white acrylic paint over the "bush" to represent the flowers that bramble bushes are covered in in early summer.

The final touch is to use small pieces of lichen - another old favourite - to represent the miscellaneous bits of herbage at the foot of the hedge.

That left the grass. I have a Noch Grassmaster, a retirement present from a major computer company would you believe, and used that. This has to be done in stages. A base layer of short stuff, 2.5mm, is laid first. This looks like a well manicured lawn but bear with it. On top of that is laid a layer of long stuff, some 6mm long but mainly 12mm long bristles. Very small amounts are put into the Grassmaster tank and the hairs are teased up using the static electricity from the empty machine. Some three or four passes are needed to get a decent effect. I scattered some yellow flock on after the final pass while the glue was still wet to give the impression of a good mix of celendines in the grass.

No matter how hard you try to cover everything, there are always bare patches. No matter, a dab of glue and a few Noch leaves and you have the start of some dandelions. Spotting these with bright yellow acrylic paint completes the effect.

In the end I found this a far more satisfying exercise in 1:32 than I ever did in smaller scales, and to complete this entry a photo with my half built Bagnall 0-4-0T nosing its way along the hedge.