Horsehay Railway Modeller

Well, probably a hundred or so matches later and a sleeper built fence is in. Obviously needs painting and weathering and I shall be adding grass and weeds along it I may trim it down a little just to remove some of the taller irregularities. This afternoon I've started work on a ratio trackside signal box. It's based on one on the svr and is very similar if the not the same design to the one at coalbrookdale. I won a collection of three kits in various states on ebay and will try and get one done for this layout and possibly one for my uni layout. Thanks for the advice, David

That was another option in the back of my mind. I might have a go with some matchsticks and wire.

I've just started roughing out some scenery for the next section roughly 5 feet between the viaduct and Station. I Need to build a signal box that will sit just in front of where the br van is. The soil on the incline will be a mix of over grown grass and some denser trees as most of the real valley is heavily wooded. I've just roughed in some fences using some modlescene fencing which I will be modifying. I've also just quickly roughed in a hedgerow alongside the lane down from the station as well as between the main lines and the coal sidings I'm quite happy with this veiw and it should look good once the signal box and scenery are in. However I'm not sure whether this looks right and what to do with he coal sidings. I want some sort of separation from the main lines as in reality I think there was a line of trees. In reality the sidings were much longer and there was a decent gap from the mainline but I don't have space so I've just put these in to represent them. I'm not sure if the hedge looks right... obviously it will be cut properly, painted and covered in scatter but is it prototypical? As for the sidings themselves I shall probably add a bit of grass growing across them and I will add some coal stathes and another hut or shed. Any thoughts?

Today I've started slowly progressing scenery towards the station. I've decided to work in sections so I can get areas looking relatively good before moving on to the next . Hopefully having most of the lower area looking good before October. Then I will be able to add further details around the layout when I'm home from university over the next few years. With that in mind I've glued down some soil from the garden on the embankments just up until the end of the platform and I've turned my attention to the coal sidings. I've had this peco yard hut for a few years an it has been sat in a box of stuff that I didn't sell from the old layout. I've been putting it by these sidings as a place holder but this afternoon I decided I could keep it if I made it look a bit more realistic. I set about gluing on matchsticks to create planks. I also added brick plasticard to the chimney. As well as a new stack on top. This was then painted with several brown and black washes and weathered with artists pastels. I also started adding an Interior by adding a false wall to hide the wires for an led. This wall also hid the alcove formed by the moulded chimney. I've painted the interior walls white for now as well as painting in a fire place. I've now realised with the light on I will need to add a floor and some Very basic interior detail. I'm not sure whether to add some sort of desk and make it look like an office or to make it some sort of tool shed. I'm leaning towards an office and I might add a non windowed shed next to it.

Afternoon all, I realised its been a while since I posted here, I've been busy with my main layout. But the uni layout is progressing steadily too. I've finally tidied an area in the lower workshop of the garage and set up the boards on top of a pasting table. I have applied a premium Id backscene. Mostly grass and trees as most of the backscene will have retaining wall etc. On anyway. Track is arriving steadily. I've preordered it all and it is slowly being dispatched my way as bits come into stock. I've cut out the track plan and and am getting ready to cut and glue cork down. Finally I have started work on the points control electronics. I've decided to go with arduino servo control as I have everything I need already except a few more servos so all in it will cost me about a tenner to electrify and operate all of the points. Not much else to say. Thanks for looking David

Today I did a little work with static grass blending the cutting into the tree line. I'm tempted to put some sort of lineside fencing along the treeline hmm.... I also painted the back scene to fill in the gap above the river bed. A compromise was made when I installed it meaning i kept the height behind the raised area but had a gap above the valley of the brook I had started to fill this gap the other week using trees and foliage cut out from the leftovers of the backsene for my portable layout however some painting was needed to finish it off. Thanks, David

As promised here is some of my method for the large oak trees above. All of this is drawn from various tutorials around the Web. I began by twisting about 18 strands (36 as they were doubled over). After forming the base of the trunk I separated a few wires at a time until I was left with a vague tree outline. I then twisted the ends into loops which are later snipped to form even more branches. Once I was happy with the armeture I coated it all in a thick layer of pva glue mixed with tile grout Then over a few days I hand plucked and glued on chunks of seafoam using superglue and backing poweder it was then sprayed brown and grey and foliage was applied in the form of woodland scenics coarse turf. The finished result is shown aboveas I don't have enough space in this post. Thanks for looking, David

Hi there Johnster. I am very slowly standardising on kadee couplings, at the moment I'd rather buy more rolling stock than spend money on couplers however every now and then I slip some in an order and now half of my coaching stock is fitted along with either end my wagon rake and all my locos. Thanks for the suggestion though. Today's update: The bulk of the 'woodland' on the large cutting is in. I will do some follow up posts on the large oak tree however all of the smaller trees are just seafoam and woodland scenics turf... I say just it's still taken a few days and over 30 trees. I may add more colours to different trees with different scatters and I need to add a few more trees to the edges however I've ran out of scatter for now. I think it looks quite convincing under the canopy, just need to add a few people exploring.

Thanks for the good advice, I had considered it before before bit hadn't thought of the dirt plastic wheels carry. I've decided to boycott Dapol for now as I have problems with all of the wagons I've got from them but I will certainly try swapping out he wheels.

Thanks. Yeah wasn't quite sure what to call them . Aparently they were added by gwr but I'd like to think they were cast in Coalbrookdale. I might also add the square plates that are alternated between them too.

A few more bits of progress ready to show. I've been working quite hard on the Brook area. I'm not sure what I've shown recently so I will list all the changes. I've added das clay stones around the viaduct arches. I've added black iron wheels /rosettes on the viaduct based on those added by gwr in Coalbrookdale (designed and 3d printed myself) I've begun painting and adding stones to the Brook ready for resin in the future. And most recently I've glued in peco girder bridge sides and blended the. In with das clay. This all needs painting and weathering. There has also been some rapid growth over at the feild and a hedgrow has sprung up overnight. This is just a basic hedge with rubberised horsehair and woodland scenics coarse turf this may be detailed further in the future And finally this evening I decided to ballast the branch line gradient. I went for grey ballast which should look good once all airbrushed and weathered in. It should provide some variation from the buff limestone ballast on the mainlines and imply that it has been ballasted at a later date than the main lines also from a different quarry. Ive also just glued an underlay er of soil on the embankment here.

Evening all. Having finished and mostly weathered the road I cleaned the tracks and much to my annoyance the 04 was catching on the paving between the rails. Just to get things running again after just under a week being idle due to one area of scenery or another. I ripped up the road just between the rail heads. Here is a photo from before I chipped the road between the rails. I am not 100% happy with it yet but I'll see how it looks when I get other scenery done over here. In other news today I received an order from Liverpool that I spent some birthday money on. This included mostly scenic items however I also bought three second hand mainline mineral wagons. I have given them A very light weathering as they were a little bright , it's not much and I'm sure ill get round to dirtying them up alot more sometime but they looked very toy like on their first lap and the simple weathering will do for now. ( left weathered vs right clean) They have plastic wheels but run very well compared to my Dapol wagons which all jump off the rails at frogs. ( still need a back to back gauge) Finally for this evening I have a shot of the cutting with my weathered 04 and some new undergrowth freshly glued down David

Thanks for the advice looks like I'm going decal shopping.

The road is coming along nicely however there's more work to do so here is a teaser shot for now. ( cars temporarily placed for scale) I've also been working on weathering my class 04 I may have gone a bit over board however I am quite happy with it. You may notice I accidentally removed the br crest and cab number by putting to much thinner on with my pastels. I may buy new ones however I might leave them off so I can either run it as br but with too much dirt on to see the crests or as ex br private owner what do you guys think?

A few shots of this evenings progress. The road was lined with matchsticks as a former before the filler was spread A few layers of filler were then added and smoothed. A lot of mess was made and I need to touch up the tracks either side. The matchsticks were then removed revealing quite a crisp edge to the road, this will be blended in later. and here it is all tidy. With the brown under coat touched up Much More work to be done but the basics of the road are now in.