JRamsden

OK, so an update... sorry for the slow reply, I haven't had as much time to return to the layout as I would have liked recently. I had a stab at creating the trap points which were so kindly described by contributors to this thread. I used a couple of old points and stole the fine switch blades as they had a nice profile without the need for much modification. The single trap used a more standard piece of track, filed to an angle. The effect isn't as good as the double trap, but looks good enough for my liking. All rails were soldered and cosmetic sleeper extensions were added later, cut from a spare piece of Peco flexitrack. Now I turn my attention back to the point rodding. I have attempted a plan based on the information I have: My understanding is that the amount of push and pull should be equal in a single rodding run. But what about the runs that go to the right of the signal box? They are very short, only around 35 to 40 feet from the 'box. Then again, the RH point switch also has a trap joined to the same rod which, presumably, extends the whole run? I put a compensator in the longest run but not sure if it's in the right place? Any advice on improving this setup would be greatly appreciated! All the best, Jonathan

This is really useful information, thanks! ...and from a modelling point of view, this is also massively useful. Thanks!

Potentially silly question... I understand most signals are placed on the left side of the track. Does this rule always follow for ground signals too? I assume there's an exception somewhere, as usual! Also, for points that are hand operated. Would these be a simple lever that could be operated whenever, or a ground frame connected to the 'box in some way?

Hey folks, thanks for all your thoughts on this. It makes for interesting reading :) I should mention that some of these items are already applied to the board and the space is even more limited than the plan suggests. The starter is already in place and there's just no space to bring it forward as it's one of those motorised ones that requires space above and below the board. Was this ever an issue in real life? Would there have been an inventive solution to accommodate for when a signal could not be placed exactly where it needed to be? Beyond the starter's current position, there's a scale 50ft before it meets the edge of the scenic section and heads into the fiddle yard. I often use Hawkhurst station as a reference point as it was the original terminus of the line I'm modelling. It's design is not too different to my own, albeit with slightly more sidings and a bay platform. I never paid much attention before, but photos clearly show trap points in the loop and the signalling diagram shows them too. Ground signals are present also, based apparently on an SECR design and seem to be common along the line. Picture below from Wizard Models Ltd, not my own sketch! Additionally, from what I can see, the 14 lever signal box operates every set of points on the diagram. But hand operated points means less rodding, so I'm more than happy to go with that! Weighing up the options, it seems that trap points were used in a similar fashion to those described here and I'll probably attempt to replicate them on my layout. Space is definitely confined and mine is certainly a much-condensed approximation of the sort of stations that existed. I guess my next question would be a follow-up on ground signals. Where would they need to be placed? On the Hawkhurst diagram there is one leaving the head shunt (presumably for the loop?) Another from the loop onto the main line (RH end). Would there need to be any signals into or out of the sidings or engine shed? Thanks as always, Jonathan :)

Many thanks for the link and great photo. Nice to know I'm on the right track now... so to speak. That is definitely a nice clear shot and should help me get the look right :)

Yes, it will be mostly steam era; Southern into BR. I did a lot of umming and ahhing over this plan, I must say! The space is very small and there were many things I wanted - a goods shed was on the plan for a while - but in the end I reached a compromise. Much of what is featured is only here because I was using the Hawkhurst Branch as a template. Hawkhurst station itself had more infrastructure than you'd expect (including a two-road engine shed!) purely because they intended to extend in the future. The cattle dock was a last minute addition purely because I acquired some lovely SR cattle wagons and wanted an excuse to run them! :D There are things I'd do differently if I started again (I've already done that once...) but all the buildings arebuilt and the track laid, so I don't plan to make major changes again at this stage. Incidentally, I have come across a photo of what @RailWest has been describing. I've seen it called a "Tandem trap" and the Strathspey Railway's signalling blog has a great set of photos showing the exact setup of such a trap. I couldn't be luckier to have such clear reference material! The blog has several entries which show the pointwork, mostly in May and June for anyone who might be interested: https://signallingstrathspey.blogspot.com/2020/05/morley-project.html

Oops, that photo was an accident. I was going to use it to show how cramped the space is, but seems it was useful anyway. Thanks so much for your help and perseverance. That is much clearer to my brain! This seems like a really specific piece of trackwork. You wouldn't happen to know where I can see a photo of the real thing or anything similar, would you? Jonathan

Thanks for all your help folks :) 1) I had no idea this was a thing! This may be useful knowledge given how little space I have. 2) I didn't consider this. I may be able to modify the signal I have to feature a non operational shunting arm, perhaps? 3) I'm basically copying the setup that was at the real-life terminus, Hawkhurst. I assume they only had a 'box because they were planning on continuing the line later, something that never happened in real life. But it's built and in place now, so I'd rather keep it :) 1) Good to know, thank you for educating me! :) OK, I'm learning about trap points! I hope I have interpreted your instructions correctly; I have revised the plan and include it below. So one trap to protect against anything in the loop, and another against anything in the ES line? I may have to get creative in terms of creating these trap points.

Many thanks folks @RailWest, @Michael Hodgson & @TheSignalEngineer Already this is a great help :) I have started my own thread, as suggested.

I have reached the stage of my layout where I'm thinking about signalling and associated infrastructure. But I have to admit it boggles my mind somewhat! I'm attempting to go for as much realism as possible but have to admit I stop somewhere before "rivet-counter" level :D I tentatively put out feelers the other day and got some great feedback very quickly, but soon realised I may have missed a few earlier steps e.g. trap points! Addleford Green is a branch terminus in Kent. It is a fictional 'what-if' scenario where the Hawkhurst branch extended to an equally fictitious town. The setting is around the Southern era, possibly extending into BR Southern Region when it takes my fancy. I assume the extension was built somewhere in the early 1900s. Close to the station is the Addleford Creamery which enjoys its own siding for rail-borne milk tankers. The adjacent siding features a cattle dock and loading crane for miscellaneous goods. There is a single track engine shed nearby. I hope to operate both passenger and freight, with some shunting while a passenger train is in the platform. The plan below shows my current (revised) thinking in terms of point operation from the 'box. I understand that only the loop points actually need operation from the 'box and only the right-hand point requires a facing point lock. All other points are hand-operated? Two trap points should be in the loop, but I have to confess I never gave these any thought before now. I'm reluctant to relay track at this stage and wonder if anyone has had any success creating the look of trap points without using something off the shelf? Could the point to the engine shed siding be used as a trap point? I'd also love some feedback on my current point rodding route. It seems a little convoluted in places because the track layout is quite cramped and leaves little space for the mechanisms required to operate the point work. In particular is the point at the centre of the loop which serves the two sidings. Where would the operating lever be placed for this point? I assume it cannot be between the main and loop lines. Can it be situated across the engine shed siding? All feedback is appreciated! Many thanks in advance :)

I hope you don't mind me hijacking this thread for another point rodding question of my own? I've been reading the thread with great interest as I am about to embark on my own point rodding journey and want to get it as accurate as possible. My layout is a very small branch terminus (trains enter from the right and the left is a very short head shunt) and I'm using the Wills point rodding kit. To be honest, the whole thing blows my mind a little, but I really want to add this level of detail. Below is a diagram of my current thinking. The concrete area centre bottom of the photo is the site of an engine shed. My main questions are: 1) Would the suggested path taken by the rods make sense/be permitted on the prototype? I see the most direct route would be to take most of the rods along the platform edge, but there's very little clearance for what would be 6 rods. What would happen in real life if the only viable route was very narrow? 2) 4 points are served by rodding (the last will be a lever frame as it belongs to a private siding) but do the remaining 4 points all need facing point locks? 3) Am I interpreting compensators correctly, or should there be more? 4) If anyone is feeling particularly kind... where would I need to add ground signals? Thanks! Jonathan

I'm something of an Oxford Diecast collector at this stage(!) and I've been meaning to try out some weathering on them. I'll definitely be following your process to see how it turns out for me. Thanks for all the useful tips Weathering is something I'm a little terrified of, truth be told. Seeing the process here with a logic to each step has really helped make it seem much more approachable. I must say, just giving the whole thing a spray of Dullcote really does make a huge difference. That hyper-shiny look these models have is one of their biggest drawbacks IMO. It's great that they're so easily customised though, so I'm not complaining too much!

The cattle dock build continues... A concrete 'apron' was created out of some mount card painted a concrete kind of colour. This was then simply stuck to the outside edge of the track, sloping slightly away to allow for drainage. Care was taken to ensure it didn't foul any wheels and that it sat just below rail height so the rail heads could still be cleaned. Constant testing with a spare wagon is essential. A buffer stop was made out of some coffee stirrers painted white and red, then weathered slightly with a dirty acrylic wash. The concreate apron was also weathered in the same way but the camera hasn't really picked it up. With all posts and rails added and secured, I took the final leap of faith and glued the whole assembly in place. A final piece of plastikard was cut to finish off the landing area of the dock. This will be painted and weathered in time, much of the area behind the buffer stop will likely be bushes and weeds. Water troughs were added. These came from the Langley Models range and just required painting. I added a thin layer of realistic water too. I may top this up in future; the poor animals haven't got a lot to drink! Finally, two SR cattle wagons were offered up and (thankfully) they still lined up perfectly with the gates, phew. Looks like it's good to go! All for now, Jonathan

Thanks Mikkel I have been very impressed with the Treemedus powder; it produces a very convincing effect. I had mostly chosen to use it on the farm area where I figured the ground would be a little more on the uneven/loose side. I agree about your comment regarding the camera; when I saw that very bottom close-up photo I thought it looked quite convincing. However I'm more likely to spend time viewing it from a distance, so it's hard to say which way to go! I haven't tried pigments and also mean to look into weathering powders too. Perhaps they could have worked well here.

From my research it seems that a great deal of rural lines (perhaps some major ones too) would not have used proper ballast for sidings and smaller lines. Instead the substrate would be ash or just compacted earth, probably mixed with whatever was cheap and easily to hand. I really wanted to achieve this effect on Addleford Green and have been thinking about how I would do it for a long time. Images of Hawkhurst's yard show that a lot of the sidings, particularly around the goods shed, were surrounded (almost buried in some cases!) in compacted earth. I decided to start by covering the existing ballast with a thin layer of Das Clay. I love this stuff! It's so easy to work with and doesn't stick to everything quite as badly as plaster or filler. I started around the engine shed area, pushing small amounts of clay onto the board which had been treated with a thin layer of ordinary PVA. The aim was to just cover the sleepers and also to blend in the piece of card I had placed previously as the engine shed interior. Happy with how this looked, I moved onto the sidings and carried out the same process. Das Clay dries reasonably quickly but remains workable for some time too. I found it useful to wet pieces of the clay in a pot of water, making them much easier to smooth down with a finger. Having ballast already laid made the clay go much further as it only had to coat the top. In my infinite wisdom I decided that the surface of this "compacted" earth would have some texture. So I sprinkled on some sand with a mind to paint the whole thing once it had dried. This would be my undoing! I popped along to B&Q and selected a few match posts of emulsion paint which looked like close facsimiles of dull earth tones. I picked out some darker colours for the engine yard and some greys for the road. Then I gave the whole thing a coat of each of the colours, starting with the darkest for each. Doesn't look too bad, huh? Maybe a little dark on the earth colour, but that would soon be solved with another coat of a lighter brown dry brushed over the top. Good heavens! That didn't work quite as I had planned. There were several issues: 1. The sand made dry brushing with emulsion paint quite difficult and didn't produce the effect I expected. 2. The second brown wasn't just a lighter version of the first, it was a completely different shade entirely and the two didn't look natural together. The road had fared better but now looked almost white. 3. The overall texture didn't look right at all, for the road or the sidings. Scenic modelling guru Chris Nevard once said (and probably more often than that!) that modellers often concern themselves too much with texture when it's actually colour that really aids the look of realism. This project proves that theory. In fact, every time I've aimed to add some kind of texture to anything, it's always looked massively wrong somehow. What to do now? I had two options: 1. Apply more Das Clay to eradicate the texture. 2. Apply some finely sieved earth powder over the top. As my poor points had already endured clay, glue and paint, I felt even more clay and paint could spell disaster. So I went with option 2. Treemendus earth powder, finely sieved and sprinkled over dilute PVA. Removal from the rail heads and areas where wheel flanges passed through was essential. It looks better when dry! I put some of the buildings in place to see what the overall effect would be and I was pleased enough. The texture was better, although I think this was a case of it not needing to be simulated at all. The earth powder gave a pleasing earth colour and there was some natural variation which I'd have struggled to achieve with paints. In my usual backwards fashion, I attempted a test piece of track after I had made my blunder! Half Das Clay and half earth powder, it showed that the Das Clay alone actually provided a nice enough looking random earth appearance and that the colour was in fact key. The colour I used has not shown up well on the photos below; it's a closer match than the pots I originally bought but much too pale. The earth powder received a coat of matt sealer which definitely affects the colour and makes it darker. I didn't repeat this step on the actual layout. Next time I want this effect I will likely use only Das Clay and be more careful to mix up a more convincing earth colour, as I feel this will go a long way to solving the issue. I suspect that once buildings, weeds and details are added, much of the effect will be hidden anyway! All for now, Jonathan

Hawkhurst originally featured a two-road engine shed but it was closed in 1931. After that, one of the lines was removed leaving one for access if required. I wanted to feature an engine shed on Addleford Green. My reasoning was that those in charge would not have repeated the same mistake twice and opted to build a single track version. I used the plans for the original two-read shed as a template for my own paired-down design. Once again, I must give huge thanks to the Wild Swan book regarding the Hawkhurst branch, which features some lovely plans for the engine shed - amongst other buildings - in the back. These were invaluable in designing my own version, otherwise I would have had very little to go on. As with most of my scratch build projects, I started by drawing up a scale plan and cutting the first pieces from embossed Slaters Plastikard. I started with the end walls. The front piece was double-sided with brick and padded out with a layer of foamboard to give a realistic thickness. The lintel and door frames are wooden coffee stirrers with doors purchased from Scale Model Scenery - the size of these doors largely dictated the size of the opening, but they were ultimately chosen for being very close to the original plans. The roundel at the top is a 3D printed piece from York Modelmaking. The clamp is shown trying to square up a slightly wonky opening! The rear panel was built in a similar fashion, although it would feature recessed brick panels which required a little extra work. The window is a generic industrial window from my spares box, most likely Ratio or Wills in origin. Shown below are the two sides of the rear wall. One wall was padded on the inside with some plastic strip. The strips which faced the outer edges were themselves faced with strips of embossed brick plastikard. This allowed me to form a recess in the brickwork and carry the appearance of bricks round the corners. Below shows the process! It's not perfect, but it looks good at a distance and when painted! Thin strips were layered up at the top and bottom of each panel to give the impression of stepped brickwork. The sides were measured, cut and assembled in a similar fashion. The windows on the sides are also from Scale Model Scenery - they do some great stuff! Soon enough, all pieces were ready. Care was also taken to ensure that the ends of each piece would fit well with each other and form a neat corner. A certain amount of overlap was required on the sides so that they fully covered the thick walls of the end panels. I always try to paint as much as possible before assembly, so the interior went first. I sprayed with a white primer and then used a thin black wash to give a grimy, used look. I had achieved a better result in the past but I was happy enough with this; the inside won't be massively visible. Glazing was added to the inside of the window frames at this stage as it will be much harder to align once the walls are assembled. Assembly time. Proses' magnetic corner clamps help no-end with ensuring everything sets square and tight. The outside of the whole model was primed with a white primer spray. When the paint had dried, the windows were masked off to avoid getting paint on the glazing. I later found that the windows were more likely to have been black. Another good reason to keep photos of the prototype to hand! The exterior was painted and some interior roof trusses were installed. I found these on eBay from a seller who was 3D printing them. There are other options on the market, but these ones almost perfectly fit the size and roof pitch of my model. I actually modified the initial plan slightly to allow for them to work. I had no idea what colour the trusses would be in real life but guessed they were likely black. I ultimately went with Halfords red primer because it looks very much like red oxide and I really enjoy the effect it gives. EDIT: I have since learned that the roof trusses are more likely to have been made from wood, so the exact colour is unknown to me. Is it possible they were painted white? I'm going to use the excuse that the trusses were primed when the shed was built but no one ever got round to painting them. Which is kind of the truth! Using some mount card I made a solid base for the engine shed. It was important that it sat just below the rail level so that the rails could still be cleaned. The piece in the centre also had to be away from the rail sides enough so that it didn't interfere with the wheel flanges. A few quick coats of paint and voila! Now to turn my attention to some of the surrounding scenery to help better blend this piece in. Part 2 coming soon... All for now, Jonathan

Originally, I had no real plans for the two sidings on the right side of Addleford Green. Eventually I settled on a creamery building for the rear siding, my interest mainly being in having a different form of traffic on the layout. I had a loose idea that the other siding would have a goods shed, likely based on those present on the real Hawkhurst branch. But in reality it would have meant two large structures (the other being the engine shed) close to the front of the board and I felt it would look a bit cramped. As with my decision for the creamery, I was eventually swung by the availability of some lovely rolling stock! I acquired a couple of beautiful SR cattle vans and decided they needed a cattle dock. I started by looking at the available space: a rather awkward spot at the front right-hand corner of the layout. The Hawkhurst branch didn't have a cattle dock at any of their stations (that I have seen or read about) so I had to take inspiration from other areas of the country. Pictorial examples of these seem to be very scarce online! After pouring over what I could get, I eventually settled on a design and drew up some plans, working out how it would all fit. Instead of the cattle dock being accessed from the ground level, I decided it would be approached from the right... off-screen, so to speak. The ground was raised to accommodate this. From my plans I started to build the actual structure out of plastikard. The steps were made from L shaped strip glued to a piece of plastikard set at a 45 degree angle, a method I have found quite effective in previous builds. The thick strip of plastic running around the edge would mimic a line of coping stones I spied on the prototype. A few test fits as I went along made sure that the structure would fit in the very specific space and shape available! Next up was to create the top surface. I used two different Slaters Plastikard sheets, one to create a paved edge and another that closely resembled the kind of square-textured concreate surface where cattle would stand. I assumed this was for better drainage and cleaning. Leaving a small gap between the two sheets created a simple drainage gully. Then I worked out where all the fence posts would go. This was done in conjunction with a couple of my cattle wagons, offering them up to the model and ensuring the gates lined up with the doors on the wagons. It was also important that both vans would line up perfectly with the pens when coupled together. Holes were drilled to accept posts. Once I was happy that the main structure was ready to have its posts installed, I painted it. Drains were installed. I should have thought of this long before! I carefully hacked out small square portions of the surface and dropped small etched brass drain covers in. They may not be the correct type, but they were all I had to hand and I think they look passable from a distance. I used Wills 419 Concrete Posts and Gates. This is a really useful pack containing many of the small details that are also included in their own cattle dock kit. I painted up the posts and gates using a white spray primer. I purchased some thin round strip plastic that I knew would fit through the holes in the posts and sprayed those matt black. Then assembly began. It was fiddly and took waaaay longer than I had anticipated! Some advice: make sure you have drilled through every post hole before you begin - it may be laborious but it's worth it! I'd also recommend threading your posts onto the cross poles BEFORE gluing the posts onto the actual model. I did mine the other way round and it was a bit of a headache. What was I thinking?! Getting these things to line up was tough. This is where pre-drilling the holes at a nice straight angle really helps. Part two will show more of the completed structure, along with the concrete apron I installed on the track that serves this dock. All for now, Jonathan

I am truly humbled by the examples posted here. What amazing detail! This is truly the level I aspire to and your comments have inspired me to give it another go. Did you add the pins to the figures yourself? Is that for ease of holding during painting or more for planting the figures on the layout? I always used to use enamels in the past, but since the introduction of readily available acrylics I largely jumped ship. This is generally because they are water based (no smelly products needed to clean brushes!) and I always felt I had more control over them. That said, I do find their consistency varies greatly and, certainly the Humbrol acrylic range, can be very inconsistent. I still have some enamels in my collection so maybe I'll give them a go. If this is 2mm scale, then my hat is well and truly off to you sir! The level of detail is phenomenal. Perhaps I won't moan in future that 4mm figures are too fiddly to paint! The tip about painting shadows and highlights is gratefully received and I will surely give that a try on my next run. It definitely makes more sense than what I have tried and seems to have more finesse than using a wash at the end. The product of your hard work and technique speaks for itself.

What a beautiful photo! Thanks for sharing. I thought I may have been going a bit too far when I added trailing foliage to the fence by the running in board, but this shows there truly is a prototype for everything

This weekend I turned my attention to adding some planted areas to my station, as per the prototype. Looking at images of Cranbrook station gave the most inspiration and it seemed to be among one of the most adorned locations on the line in terms of floral displays. Clearly someone took a lot of pride in keeping the station looking its best! The border is oversized ballast applied grain by grain with tweezers. It took about 30 seconds for me to hate myself for taking this approach... but I think the result is ultimately pleasing. This seems to have been the approach utilised by Cranbrook station itself, albeit in 1:1 scale! Photos show small rocks acting as a rudimentary border. The earth is a sprinkle of Treemendus earth powder - I'm an absolute convert to this stuff. The rose trellis is made from very thin strips of styrene. The climbing rose is a combination of individual strands of rubberised horsehair, sprayed brown, and a scattering of Woodland Scenics' leaves. The roses themselves are large clumps of a pink scatter material I have had for absolute years. I think it was originally red as much of the pack has faded to white! All other plants are a mixture of Woodland Scenics products, flocks and poly fibre and rubberised horse hair. The tall yellow flowers are florists wire with more leaves stuck to them, topped with some yellow scatter. There are a few self-adhesive tufts of grass in there too. I'm pleased with the amount of variety in foliage I have here but am interested in learning more techniques and ways of using different materials to simulate specific plants and flowers. This should be particularly useful when it comes to wild embankments. Anyway, enjoy some photos! All for now, Jonathan

Hi Phil, Thank you for your really helpful advice. I bought the smallest brush I could find for this project, although when I started I realised it could still have been smaller! I have also found synthetic brushes better for acrylics too; I tend to avoid enamels almost entirely now. Pretty much everything I paint gets a coat of some kind of matt clear sealer too; I share your dislike of gloss finishes! I also try to employ dry brushing on a lot of my painting projects but I fear it's a technique I have yet to master. Just when you think you really have removed a lot of the paint from the brush, the model is covered in it! It was definitely overkill in this instance. I think I'll change my approach as you suggest here: darker paint overall and dry brush a lighter shade over the top. I have done this for smaller, inanimate objects and enjoyed the effect it made. I was encouraged by the dark wash initially but on reflection it does appear to be too harsh for these figures I'm intrigued by your comments about adding eyes. I have seen both amazing and terrible examples of this. Whenever I have tried, it's the latter category! I'm personally happy with the blank face look (!) but I might give this a try and see how it goes.

Hi Terry, thanks for your comments There's definitely a similarity between some of these figures and, I suspect, it would be more noticeable with a larger sample size. That said, I picked the ones I did for the sake of visual variety. There's definitely a nice mix of body types in here and sometimes just changing the skin colour can help change up the identity. I don't find the fidelity to be high enough to tell individual facial features at this scale. The figures you linked also look impressive; thanks for the tip. I think I may have some of the Monty's Models figures as one or two look suspiciously like the ones I got from Langley Models. I can't say I was all that impressed with some of them, although the ones featured on this website do look a step above in most cases. Alas, I feel a lot of this comes down to the skill of the painter and I just haven't succeeded this time. I'll return to my work and see if I can get a more subtle colouration on these poor people!

Yes, I'd heard you can go along and have a scan made of yourself or anyone else you'd like. What an amazing feature to have on your layout and something that makes it truly unique and personal to you. The possibilities of this technology are impressive to say the least If only I hadn't lost my original images! These figures tend to come with various plastic appendages supporting them. The man with the scythe, for example, had very thin poles of plastic extending from the edges of the tool to the base. I guess this is all to do with the 3D printing process, but it also supports the more delicate elements for transportation and painting. They can be very easily trimmed away with a sharp blade. The plastic bases you see here will also be trimmed off once I come to plant them permanently. I'm not a fan of seeing an obvious base on my figures and find a dot of glue to the feet is generally enough to hold them, particularly when I'm not likely to be repositioning them or the layout.

WARNING! Snob opinions incoming... I've lost count of the amount of images I have seen of stunning model railways which are marred by less than convincing model people. Every modeller has their own areas of interest; some enjoy scratch building, some prioritise complex electronic systems and some just want to get down to running trains, all pretence of "finishing" their layout out the window. This is fantastic because this kind of diversity in approach is what makes any hobby interesting. But I do find it odd that so many of us spend painstaking hours recreating certain details, only to abandon certain others. In this case, the people that populate our tiny worlds. Just twenty odd years ago you would have had very few options when it came to figures of real people. Before things like 3D printing were so prevalent we had to rely on crude plastic mouldings or white metal castings, all of which seemed to produce only the most vague suggestion of an actual person. But now, with the growing popularity and access to the aforementioned 3D printing, we have a greater selection of possibilities. I dragged out a few figures I had lying around for the sake of comparison: Above, from left to right, is: a Peco figure, a white metal casting from Langley Models and a chap from a bulk bag bought from eBay. The Peco figure is about as flat as you get before you'd have to consider it 2D and the bulk bag man is actually HO scale, making him smaller than the rest, the moulding itself isn't all that bad otherwise. In this instance, the white metal casting is actually passable; perhaps the baggy clothes and facial hair help to disguise an otherwise lumpy shape. That bizarre hole in the front would need some filling first though! Plus he has a handy peg for planting the figure on the layout. The two figures above are from Bachmann's own range. In general, this range features possibly the most passable figures I have seen, particularly the station staff set (left) meaning I would happily plant these as they come. This comes down to the fact that I doubt I could apply paint much better myself. The cleaning man on the right is notably more dubious and I might be inclined to keep him somewhere out of the way! Then I discovered ModelU figures. These are made from 3D scans of real people. As a result the proportions, pose and detail are much more realistic than the previous examples. Plus the company can easily manufacture in any scale by simply increasing the scale at which they are printed, the master scan providing all detail required for the jump in size. I have been buying these figures over time and decided it was finally time to start painting them up. Below is an account of my experimentations. As with any painting project, I tend to start with a coat of primer, usually grey or white Halfords primer. I did take photos of this stage but sadly they were lost during the gap between taking and writing. I'm sure you can imagine what a primed plastic figure looks like! I tend to prefer white primer for figures. Then I apply layers of paint to add detail. I prefer acrylic paints and usually rely on my stash of Humbrol paints, although I'm aware there are probably better options these days. I start by painting the harder to reach areas and end on smaller details, sometimes using a cocktail stick for fine detail like ties or buttons. Often I find that most areas painted will require touching up later anyway because I'm just too clumsy and can't hold a paintbrush straight! Below are my two test samples. The left image shows the figure with just paint. The right image shows what they look like after a wash of highly dilute dirty grey/black paint. The exact mix is always different and the results vary greatly. I always aim for the wash to appear translucent when applied to a piece of plastic; you don't want the pigments to be too overpowering as to just cover the colours already applied. The idea is that the wash seeps into the crevices of the figure, adding depth and further colour. I think the images below show how effective this can be: See on the first figure how the trousers now have definite shadow lines? The face of the bottom figure even has a suggestion of a nose and mouth; entirely random and unexpected but it gives at-a-glance details that you just wouldn't be able to replicate on purpose. Then I aim to dry brush a very light grey over the top. This highlights the surface areas and (I hope) acts as a nice contrast to the darker areas. It is easy to overdo this, as you will see! Fired up with new-found confidence, I started work on the remaining figures. I'll put a selection below and you can judge for yourself whether this method is effective on the whole or not. I will also say that the close-up camera reveals details and colours otherwise unseen by the naked eye; it has not been too kind to my work which looks passable at a distance! (I noticed, too late, on the figure above left, that I hadn't even finished painting his chest/shirt area!) As you can see, the wash has been a bit too overwhelming for some of the figures. A lot of them are going in a field to be hop pickers, so a certain amount of grubby-ness is to be expected. But the couple above look like they've been jumping in puddles and they're destined for the platform! Some touching up of certain colours may be necessary, or perhaps a slightly weaker wash next time. My favourite thing about these figures is the variety of poses, almost all of which are standing or sitting or kneeling; some are specifically designed to be in conversation or otherwise engaged in some other stationary endeavour. There are no running figures destined to be planted in place, comically stuck in a running pose but never going anywhere. Positioning is another key factor in utilising figures effectively and it's something I hope I can get right when I commit my figures to Addleford Green in due course. For now I'd really appreciate your thoughts and any tips you may have for painting figures! All for now, Jonathan

The Christmas period has been useful for getting more done on the layout - particularly when you're in Tier 4 and really can't do much of anything else. I've made a start on various different elements but, as I so often tend to do, I've held back on mentioning any of them until significant progress has been made. Also, because I'm pretty rubbish at keeping up with any kind of running commitment such as a blog! I finally got to the stage where I can consider the Addleford Creamery building to be finished. I may add a few details here and there, plus there's the matter of installing the building and creating its immediate environs, but those parts will have to wait for now. So instead of dedicating a huge amount of descriptive text to this entry, I shall instead leave you with some images taken of the completed project. Hopefully I'll be able to share some more updates on the general progress of other areas soon. All for now, Jonathan