That Model Railway Guy

Fantastic! One of my favourite types of loco so I'll definitely be picking up at least one of these... most likely two or three Well done Rapido!

Another little job I've been working on lately is to add coal loads to all my open wagons. The Dapol kits were nice and easy as they have the moulded load that slots in. I just painted it black and glued some Hattons coal to the top. For the rest of my wagons I had to make the coal loads from scratch which meant having to do... some actual modelling! In reality it's such a simple thing but it's made a really big difference to the layout. Wagons and movements now appear to have more of a purpose (even though I'm still just aimlessly shunting things around) so it's definitely been w

Mine arrived this morning too. Have just put together a quick video showing off some close ups and a little bit of them running behind Rocket, just in case anyone wants to see them in action.

Ooh interesting idea. I don't think it would work for me with these particular modules as the trees are generally on the higher ground but it's good to know in case it's useful for future modules. In this instance though height is very much at a premium when it comes to storing these and so it's ended up saving me a lot more space by having the trees be completely removable.

As I've mentioned before I'm also documenting the build of this layout over on my YouTube channel. I tried to film as much as I could while building the scenery up and have edited together a little video of my efforts so far. Here's the link to watch it if anyone prefers that to reading my rambling posts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlqnN3o_kVo

Thanks @Alister_G, sadly the road isn't anywhere near as smooth as it looks in the photos. I certainly wouldn't want to ride a bike down it! I might try painting it to see if it makes it less noticeable before I take any drastic action but I'm not too worried considering there's still fencing/walling and bushes to go on either side of it.

Just in case anyone's wondering - in the pictures on my previous post the modules were aligned but not bolted together, which is why the baseboard join looks very noticeable. It's much better when properly connected but I also want to do some work on the static grass at the edges of the modules to hopefully disguise the join even further.

Lots more progress today! This morning I had a go at the road surface across the bridge - it's not come out amazing but it'll do for now. Funnily enough it actually looks better in the photos than it does in reality (usually it's the other way round!) but I imagine I'll end up going over it in the future to get something slightly smoother. I also added a dirt verge alongside the road and the track too just to blend it into the grass a bit better as that was something I wasn't quite happy with on my first module. There's also a dirt patch where my two buildings stand with a little p

Thank you. They've continued drying this evening and are now a bit paler than they were in the pictures... presumably as the plaster absorbs more of the paint. I'll plough on with the static grass tomorrow as planned but I can always touch up the rocks with a tiny dabs of watered down black/grey here and there if it really continues to bother me.

Just a quick update from the last few days... rocks have been made using the woodland scenics mould and have been added to the module with a little bit of modelling compound. These were painted using the leopard spot technique which was mostly successful (though I know what I'd do differently next time!). Once this was dry the entire module was painted brown before I did the ballasting. I'll leave this to dry overnight before I hopefully starting on the static grass tomorrow.

So far I haven't had any trouble with aligning the rails because of the markers on my endplates. There's also bullet dowels in each baseboard which keep the entire module aligned in a consistent way when joining up. That said I have no idea what the longevity of this is, it all works today but in a year or two things might start to slip a little. The rails are soldered to brass screws at each end so I wouldn't expect it to happen but if it does retro fitting fishplates shouldn't be too much of a problem - it'll just make connecting up the modules a lot more fiddly! Long

Thanks @Jeff Smith. No problem, the rails aren't actually connected across the joints at all. On each module I'm making sure the rails are lined up to markers on my endplates so that they're consistent on every single board no matter which order they're setup in. When the boards are bolted together there's only a 1-2mm gap between the rails which so far hasn't presented any problems with locos. For power, there are bus wires running underneath each module that feed power to the track. These have push connectors on each end to transfer the power from one module to the next.

Put on the plaster bandage this morning and it's now set rock hard! Speaking of rocks, I'll be adding a few small ones to the side of the cutting since I have one of the Woodland Scenics moulds which I've never used. I mixed up some plaster for those a minute ago and am now waiting for them to set. All being well I'll add them to the layout tonight and then paint them rocks tomorrow morning before painting the ground brown in preparation for static grass. If anyone's wondering what the flat area of expose polystyrene is on the right hand side, that's wher

Finished off the landform this morning and then spent some time this afternoon doing the messy job of putting down a layer of paper mache. The cutting is taking shape even if it is a bit soggy at the moment! I'll leave this to dry overnight and all being well I'll be able to add the plaster bandage on top tomorrow

Wow, what a great little layout! If you hadn't said I would never have guessed it was your first attempt at serious modelling. I'm currently building my first serious layout too and if I can get it looking as good as yours I'll be very happy indeed. Great work