It's been one of those days. One of those days when most things don't go the way you want them to. In fact, I've had the Sadim touch all day (the opposite of the Midas touch - everything you touch turns to sh*t) so it came as no real surprise that the start on the layout didn't quite go to plan.
Once all the Templot plans had been put on the boards, I started putting stock in the relevant places just to check the visual appearance of the plan. I don't make detailed plans, as such, I have a 'vision' that I work towards, and due to my inability to draw sketches are out of the question, unless you're trying to visualise a layout through the eyes of a four year old. Is that mummy there?!? No, it's supposed to be a tree.
So, all stock was put in various locations - tanks in the oil terminal, the 455 in the platform and two Mk1's in the bay platform, pretending to be a 2-HAP. I didn't like it, which wasn't totally unexpected with the way that the day had gone up until that point. In the pic above, the fiddle yard is off to the bottom of the picture and the viewing side is off to the left. The Bachmann wagon boxes liberally spread around are to assist with building the picture - I decided I needed some help once I decided I didn't like it the way it was.
Looking from the front of the layout, over the other end of the oil terminal sidings, towards the station. The 455 is in the main platform, the '2-HAP' (if you squint, a lot, it might look like one) is in the bay.
Looking across the oil terminal sidings, across the headshunt beyond towards the houses behind the railway - recently built and looking suspiciously like Bachmann TTA boxes.
So, after the initial disappointment and irritation of it not working in the way I had envisaged, getting to the stage of thinking 'bu**er, I'm going to have to start again', I walked away for 10 minutes. On coming back to the layout, I hit upon the solution - just reverse the viewing side.
I now understand why I've never seen a layout that slopes down at the back, it just doesn't work visually. Sure, in real life there are probably many stations that are flat at the front but slope away at the rear, but as a model it just doesn't work.
The last change of plan is the large industrial building that was supposed to be to the right at the front of the layout, where the vans are sat in the pictures above. This isn't going to work, so I'm going to have to contrive another off scene industry to get the vans in and out. I think that the industry will now be a low-ish relief building coming out of the backscene enough to make the exit to the fiddle yard slightly less visible, providing just enough of a hint to justify the occasional train of vans entering and then reversing in to the off-stage siding.
Jobs for the near future will involve turning the boards around and testing my theory - whatever happens next really hinges upon the results of that. Hopefully the change of viewing angle will do the trick, or it really is back to the drawing board.
8 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now