Port Eden- a seaside miniature line diorama in 1/10th scale

[Ben B]

The 7/8ths Scale And Larger Facebook group held a model making competition over the winter, to build a micro layout no more than 4ft-square in size (the deadline was yesterday).  I was in a bit of a model-making funk when I read about it in Garden Rail, and thought trying a new scale would be a pleasant challenge and give me a bit of impetus to crack-on with something practical, so thought I'd enter.

 

 

And this is what I ended up with; Port Eden.  A slightly run-down miniature railway and seaside pleasure gardens, somewhere on the Cumbrian Coast, in the sunny Spring of 1996.

 

So this thread is basically going to be about how I got to this   It feels good to get all this information down somewhere anyway, rather than scattered all over my computer.

 

PLAN ONE (Dec 2020)- a 7/8ths Scale industrial narrow gauge steelworks railway in Wolverhampton.

 

Just to show how much an idea can change, the initial plan for this was to do something quite conventional by 7/8ths standards, and a little shunting layout based on narrow-gauge practise.  Inspired by some shots in one of Gordon Edgars books, with a narrow gauge line threading through buildings and gantries at a steelworks, I decided a little Inglenook-type layout next to a canal basin somewhere in Wolverhampton would do.  I thought some large corrugated-steel warehouses would serve as a backdrop, a head-shunt running through an older brick workshop, lots of gratuitous pipes and gantries helping to break up the scene, with a little Greenbat-type shunter propelling some simple flat wagons about.  Maybe even a repurposed Wickham Personnel Carrier doing the shunting (one was used as a shunter at a pipe works in Barnstaple, albeit standard gauge).  So I marked out some corrugated cardboard into foot-square pieces, got some Playmobil track out of the loft, and set to work making some mock-ups.

 

 

Oh boy.  You really can't fit much in with 7/8ths scale.  OK so it is generally a garden scale, and the point of the competition was to challenge people to be creative in the small space available, but yeah, this was going to be a struggle representing a 2ft-gauge line.

 

 

Even trying to modify how the boards were spread out didn't work very well.  And this is with G rolling stock, let alone 7/8ths.

 

 

I tried it with some 0 gauge components, some old Lima track, just to see what an "18 gauge line would be like.  Better, more room for scenery.  The problem was the track, really I'd need to acquire something tighter, perhaps the old Faller Playtrain/E-Train stuff which has a tighter curvature.  But we were plummeting into the post-Christmas lockdown, and I was a bit worried about money.  This was going to need to be an upcycling project...

 

 

PLAN TWO (Late Dec 2020-Jan 2021)- A miniature railway in a Model Village

 

The answer to the problem seemed to be to go for a miniature railway instead.  I love miniature lines, and we as a family spent a lot of summer 2019 hunting down as many as possible in the North so I could get some pictures for a magazine article.  And lets face it, in the dark days of January, the idea of modelling a miniature line somewhere nice really ticked those nostalgia boxes.

 

 

I thought what I'd do is recycle an idea I'd been toying with for the Cakebox challenge, and a model of a Model Village tourist attraction, with a miniature line running through the middle of it.  Something like the set-up at Bekonscot Model Village, with a ridiculously tightly-curved, compact ride-on line in the village.  I had quite a lot of odd bits of Z-gauge trains collected over the years, and I liked the idea of having a scene with tons of movement in it.  Miniature trains running through the scene, with lots of smaller model trains doing circuits as well.  The above picture isn't Bekonscot by the way, I can't find those shots on my laptop, but is instead the charming little model village on Anglesey, that I reviewed for a Garden Rail article.

 

 

Just to back-track a bit- when I was at University I did a project called the Britannia Model Village, a mockumentary project of a fictional tourist attraction set in something of a dystopian vision of the UK.  I was filtering my love for model villages through a slightly unhealthy filter of contemporary, post-911 paranoia and dystopian fiction like "V for Vendetta" and "1984", with a sarcastic tone to it too.  Instead of rose-tinted views of thatched cottages and village bakeries, there were concrete tower blocks and run-down, closed shops.  In hindsight all very cliché-ridden, and the incredibly low budget it was done for shows, but I wanted to return to the idea of a model of a model village.  The above was done in 1/32nd scale, with Z trains.  Something like this, but a bit jollier and less dystopian, would fit the bill for this new project, I thought.  1/10th figures would make the 'model' trains look a little more realistic as garden railway items too.  Best of all, I still had a lot of this stuff in boxes, so I could upcycle a lot of it.

 

 

Also relevant, this was the first Cakebox challenge I did, a miniature seaside railway (using yet more of those old Britannia Model Village figures and detailing parts).  A basic ride-on seaside miniature railway, slightly down on its luck.  I figured that Port Eden -a fictional Cumbrian Coast resort town that featured heavily in the Britannia project- would make a suitable setting for this project.  A sprawling seaside pleasure gardens, with a model village incorporated into it.

 

 

This was the mock-up for the possible Cakebox on the theme (with a slightly bizarre collection of visitors to the place borrowed from the kids' toybox, largely because it was raining too heavily to go out to the shed for the box of actual 1/32nd figures!)

 

I decided I wanted a continuous-run circuit, but looking through my boxes of track from smaller-scale stuff, revealed that using flexitrack would be the only option for 00.  And given I didn't have enough in stock, and the model shops were closed (and didn't have much either) I'd need to try something else.

 

 

However, a box of old TT track and spares/repairs locomotives and stock, picked up at a bargain price about a decade ago, seemed to offer a better possibility, so it looked like this would be the way forward...

 

 

[Ben B]

Part Two- the Model of the Model Village

 

In a beautiful demonstration of Mission Creep, this post should demonstrate how an idea can gradually get out of hand...

 

 

To start with, I tried to see if it would fit on an existing board, to save a bit of time and effort.  Sadly it wouldn't, so I'd need to do some woodwork (not a good time to do it, a lockdown).  Also note the 3D printed track, Chris Rennie I think, that if anything was too small for the plan.

 

 

So out came a piece of MDF, which had been a fortunate skip-find earlier in the year, and put on one side for a rainy day.

 

 

Quick try to see how a miniature train might look on the board.

 

 

I felt it needed raising up, for some detail under the track level, hence the Z-gauge Flying Scotsman to show the model garden railway below the level of the miniature line.

 

 

Trying out where a functional circuit of Z would go.  The cut-out bits would be a pond/stream.

 

 

This is where things were getting out of hand; to try and contain the scene, I wanted the impression that this was inside an old walled garden, like the former Himley Model Village.  The trouble was, to create some space for the scenics, I needed a tunnel, which meant the ground level had to be at least 16cm above rail height, and that meant that the walls had to be tall, which meant the whole thing had to be really tall, which in turn created storage problems...

 

 

Enclosing the tunnel.

 

 

The pond- I did some representations of Koi Carp with tip-ex and sharpies, as the still water would be done with a simple layer of thin acrylic over the top of it.

 

 

I'd acquired a few of these Rokuhan cheapie Z gauge railbuses, and a little oval starter set,  some years ago, which would fill the restricted area of the top layer.

 

 

Two circuits of working Z track built into the centre, with the idea that it would be a miniature line looping around a hillside that climbed up to the back.

 

 

Quick test to see how photography would work of the scene.

 

 

At this point, I really started to fall out of love with the idea.  It was just so bloody tall; at the same time, it felt way too cluttered, like I was trying to shove too much into a small space.

 

 

In the end, it just seemed far too contrived.  There was no way I could conceive of a walled garden with that much slope, that would be turned into a model village.  The amount of work it would need to be developed into the final product- flowing water for a waterfall, foam scenery, miniature buildings- just terrified me.  I realised that, horrible as it seemed, the only way to make this work was to cut my losses, dismantle it, and come up with a new idea...

 

 

[Ben B]

Part Three- redesign and rebuilding...

 

Well, having scrapped the original build, I found inspiration from the Seaside Railways thread on this very forum.  Loads of beautiful shots of eccentric little miniature and narrow-gauge railways.  At this point two ideas were vying for attention; a straightforward miniature line, and a 2ft-gauge line in the style of some French beach railways, like the one at Cape Ferret.

 

 

A quick test; seemed to be lacking something.

 

 

Shifting it to the diagonal seemed to offer more scenic possibilities.

 

 

As I said, I was still toying with doing this as a 2ft-gauge line, so out with the Playmobil track again.

 

 

It kind of worked, but the tracks seemed to dominate the scene.  The whole point was to make something that looked like it had an operational purpose, a simple halt with a short siding didn't seem to work as well as a passing loop with siding on the miniature.

 

 

At this point, I had a serious thought about storage, and decided to see if I could do a tesselating box, with two half-scenes that would store as a kind of open-sided cube, with a removable bridge in the centre.

 

 

I was able to upcycle a load of wood from some other dismantled projects...

 

 

Then tried to bolt it together.  It seemed to work as a rough frame, so I laid some boards on for the scenery.

 

 

Quick test.

 

 

Sadly this revealed a problem; to get enough height to clear the figures, it couldn't tesselate any more.

 

 

So, what the hell.  A further slight rebuild, to take full advantage of the available width (3ft) and make it a permanent, non-folding diorama.

 

 

A quick word on the bridge- this is something I'm designing for the garden railway, it's based on a real bridge at Talybont, on the Cambrian Coast, in the middle of a site we used to camp on as kids.  This was an early test-shot straight off the laser cutter.  Not quite right for its intended use, but fits the bill for this project, as it doesn't look too imposing.

 

 

The glue I had to hand wasn't great though, left a lot of fogging and took a while to set.  Luckily it could be hidden with a bit of weathering.

 

 

The idea was this would be a line slicing through a redeveloped stream valley, the stream itself turned into a bathing lido.  This end of the lido would be a shallow paddling pool, inspired by one at Silloth, Cumbria, though the idea of the line being close to a lido is based heavily around Cleethorpes.

 

 

The brick walls were upcycled from the previous Model of the Model Village version; they're embossed card, glued onto the 6mm MDF.

 

 

And a quick test to check clearances again.  More on the loco in the next post.  The edge of the paddling pool uses both 2mm and 4mm Peco concrete platform edging, with some misc slabs that I got in a big box of second-hand plasticard last year.  The tiled surface of the pool was also done on the laser cutter, I sprayed a sheet of black acrylic with dusted white, then when it was dry, did an etching pass to make it look like grouted tiles, with a custom-designed logo.  I then covered the lot with clear acrylic, although annoyingly there were joins as I had to use three smaller pieces (getting hold of 3mm acrylic was next to impossible, I'd guess it's all been bought up for PPE production).

 

 

 

 

[Ben B]

Part Four

 

 

Another test of how it would look, everything starting to come together.  The lifeguard tower was an attempt to hint at a larger pool beyond the front of the board, the other side of a boardwalk/footbridge.

 

 

I scrapped it though in favour of a sales kiosk though, designed and cut in a day or so on a laser cutter.

 

 

Packing foam for the landscaping -thank goodness everything comes mail-order these days- which was sculpted then covered in filler, before being covered again in hanging-basket liner.

 

 

For the stone work, I tried some stone paper but it didn't quite do the business.  With time running out (only a couple of weeks to go at this point) I resorted to air-dry clay.

 

 

To hide the line exiting on the top-right, I thought I'd have a lightweight, but ornate, footbridge, using some plastic railings sold for dolls houses.  The base was built from Airfix pontoon bridge bases, some plasticard girders, and MDF.

 

 

The Port Eden logo was something of a thrown-together design, done quite quickly in photoshop, but it seemed suitably cheesy and 1990's...

 

Speaking of Photoshop- as with the Steampunk Cakebox (and indeed most of my projects), I enjoyed knocking-up some home-designed posters and artwork for the place one morning whilst we were self-isolating, and there wasn't much else to do whilst supervising the home-schooling.

 

 

The original Cakebox iteration of the miniature line put in an appearance...

 

 

...as did the Edwardian/Steampunk-era version of an advert for this fictional resort, done for the latest cakebox.

 

 

...and it's 1990's equivalent.  This was actually a poster produced for Port Eden as it appeared in the Britannia Model Village, just modified to look a bit more abstract, with the new logo.  It was only going to be a few cm high in the background.

 

 

In a similar vein, here's one with an Airfix campervan, from yet another project that's in the works at the moment...

 

Gratuitous Daleks!  But then I'm a massive Dr.Who fan, had some shots from an earlier Dalek project, and it seemed like the sort of thing places like Blackpool had on show at the time the layout is set (mid 1990's)

 

 

Happygoth is a character me and a couple of friends came up with for a comic years ago- seemed like the suitable sort of horribly-colourful thing that would appear in the 1990's.

 

 

The posters and signs set up, ready to print.

 

 

[Ben B]

Finally!  Well, I saw finally; it isn't quite done as much as I'd like, there's a few last details to add.  I just ran out of time for the deadline really.  Anyway, here's what it looks like...

 

 

It really needs a proper backscene, but I ran out of wood!  A few sheets of thick card did the trick.

 

 

I was a bit limited for angles to get the wide shots, hence my shadow.  Whoops.  Still, a sunny morning gave it the right atmosphere for Spring in 1996.

 

 

I wanted one end to have ornate railings, the other to look a bit more recent, so the rather more 60's/70's concrete tunnel and post/tube railings.  All done on the laser cutter, apart from the tubes which came from a dead drying rack.  Hopefully the sign conveys the impression that this is just a little slice of a much larger attraction.

 

 

The figures were a bit limited; I didn't have time to disguise the joints, but at the same time, I didn't really want to damage items I'd just eventually be passing-on, as I don't think I'll be sticking with such a large scale.  I could also have done with a few more 'summery' figures for the paddling pool.

 

 

The loco is a vagualy American-looking thing, meant to be a steam-outline-diesel.  It was inspired by memories of the Severn-Lamb 'Colarado' types at places like the West Midlands Safari Park when I was a kid.  It sits on a Triang TT pacific chassis.

 

 

The open carriage was designed and done on the laser cutter, it sits on a Triang Weltrol.  The sit-astride carriages were a pair of roof-less carriages I got on ebay, with some laser-cut additions.  The idea is that the railway, like the rest of Port Eden, is falling on hard times, so the old passing loop is more used for storing old stock nowadays.

 

 

The kiosk.  Ah, memories of working boring shifts on hot days in places like this.  The interior is a mish-mash of old toy bits from the spares box.  I might do a bigger post on this when it's finished, it's not quite there yet.

 

 

Most of the details are a mish-mash of cheap Dolls House items, Playmobil, and the like.  The inflatables hopefully add a splash of colour, whilst disguising the join lines of the clear acrylic.  The two large beachballs were transparent spheres sold filled with elastic bands by Wilkos, coloured in with sharpies.

 

 

So that's that then, for now.  After Easter, I'm hoping to get chance to do the finishing touches (extra bushes, trees, Ivy, figures etc).  But I don't think after this project I'll be returning to 1/10th scale, it's a bit too big for me!  I think something in Z next, with hopefully less mission-creep with the project...

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

I’ve only just seen this but it’s really interesting to see how it all came together. Somehow the miniature line just looks ‘right,’ despite possibly being a bit narrow (around 5 inches). Do you find it easy to source figures for 1:10? I did a little bit of 1:12 stuff a few years ago and really enjoyed that, and I’m intrigued by this even larger scale.

[phil_sutters]

Great fun. I think that the down side of modelling in this large scale is that the figures seem much more frozen, although the detail is there. There are lots of nice touches, especially the cafe, and I like the posters.

Edited May 23, 2021 by phil_sutters

[Jerry1975]

I really like this,  sonwthing a bit different, well done. 

 

Jerry. 

[phil_sutters]

13 hours ago, JimRead said:

Hello Phil,

 

Off topic I know but thanks for Ipernity looks a good site.

 

Cheers - JIm

ipernity has some brilliant photographers including a handful of railway enthusiasts. One has a terrific collection of Chinese industrial steam scenes. I prefer the options for the layout of the photos, which is one of the reasons that I moved from Flickr. It is funded by subscriptions and run by its members.

[Ben B]

23 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I’ve only just seen this but it’s really interesting to see how it all came together. Somehow the miniature line just looks ‘right,’ despite possibly being a bit narrow (around 5 inches). Do you find it easy to source figures for 1:10? I did a little bit of 1:12 stuff a few years ago and really enjoyed that, and I’m intrigued by this even larger scale.

 

Thanks- the figures dictated the scale really.  I got into building the project right as the post-Christmas lockdown hit, so trying to work on a budget and make the best of what was lying around, I ended up using Dr.Who figures which were apparently scaled at around 1/10th.  They're pretty easy to get hold of second-hand, most of the ones I used for this project belonged to my eldest, she got them from a nice second-hand toyshop that used to be in Settle.  I'd agree the track is probably a bit on the narrow side, it was a legacy from the original model village design where the only track I had that would fit was TT.  By the time I changed the design to Port Eden, I'd already started the rolling stock, and didn't want to rebuild everything, but I know that it probably ought to be a sit-astride line for 5-inch gauge; if I was doing it again from scratch, I'd probably use 00 or even 0 track.

[Ben B]

23 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

Great fun. I think that the down side of modelling in this large scale is that the figures seem much more frozen, although the detail is there. There are lots of nice touches, especially the cafe, and I like the posters.

 

Cheers for the nice comments- the posters and things, and the little details, were fun to do.  I'll agree, there is a weird uncanny valley effect with the figures- in this scale, figures are generally cartoony or caricatures, or action figures by the look of it, with some very nice (but quite pricey) 3D printed ones.  The action figures tend to be much better proportioned, but all those points of articulation mean they stand out as unnatural, and whilst if the figures were mine, I'd have been tempted to pose them, filler the joints and gaps, and repaint them, I didn't think my foster-daughter would be happy with me modifying her beloved Dr.Who figure collection

[Ben B]

 

I got chance recently to get some slightly better, less-rushed photographs of the diorama in the sun.  Didn't half get some funny looks off the neighbours mind you, taking pics of this out in the garden...

 

 

New backdrops- though they didn't come out too well.  I bought some cheap board, sprayed them blue with white and grey clouds, left them on the drive to dry... then a neighbour down the road started power-sawing decking planks, and filled the air with clouds of sawdust and rubbish, so the blue sky is a bit lumpy and debris-strewn up close.  The hills are flat card with static-grass glued on, and a bit of spray painting for texture, then some odds and ends of 00 gauge trees and dried moss glued on.  A couple of bigger trees were fake, plastic trees bought as decorative items.  Also there's the lighthouse from the Holyhead Breakwater micro layout, but I didn't end up using that in the end.

 

 

 

 

I still need to do a bit more work on the kiosk, before it gets repurposed into my garden railway.

 

 

 

Never noticed at the time that the driver is armed; maybe the railway runs through a rough neighbourhood.

 

 

The abandoned siding was originally going to be a blocked-off tunnel, and the impression that it was part of an abandoned section of the line that had been closed and built over, but I didn't have room.  It served well enough as somewhere for storing miscellaneous bits of junk rolling stock.

 

 

Trying for some more creative angles onto the scene.

 

 

 

The upper path; I'm quite happy with how the railings came out.  It was only meant to be viewed from low-angle, so the forced perspective nature of this end of the shot is a bit more visible from up here.

 

 

 

 

[Ian Holmes]

Excellent!

[009 micro modeller]

7 hours ago, Ben B said:

Never noticed at the time that the driver is armed; maybe the railway runs through a rough neighbourhood.

 

Or perhaps he’s ready for a pretend gunfight/hold up. Would go well with the slightly ‘Wild West’ styling of the loco and is the sort of thing that some tourist lines used to do. I think even Fairbourne might have done an event featuring something like this at one point.

 

Alternatively, he’s fed up with people playing around and jamming the points with stones (apparently a common issue with some unfenced miniature lines) and has decided to deal with the perpetrators in a rather extreme way...

 

I particularly like the way you’ve done the ground cover around the track itself.

Edited May 24, 2021 by 009 micro modeller

[Ben B]

9 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Or perhaps he’s ready for a pretend gunfight/hold up. Would go well with the slightly ‘Wild West’ styling of the loco and is the sort of thing that some tourist lines used to do. I think even Fairbourne might have done an event featuring something like this at one point.

 

Alternatively, he’s fed up with people playing around and jamming the points with stones (apparently a common issue with some unfenced miniature lines) and has decided to deal with the perpetrators in a rather extreme way...

 

I particularly like the way you’ve done the ground cover around the track itself.

 

Thanks- the ground cover was a bit of an experiment, tufts of hanging basket liner, N gauge ballast, a bit of sand, and whatever odds and ends of flock and moss I could find in a box of scenic bits.  I inherited a toolbox full of scenic bits years ago, loads of unmarked takeaway tubs and plastic bags full of scatter, flock, and all sorts of other bits, so I just tend to mix and match until it looks right... its a pity they're unmarked, as I've no idea of manufacturer or product codes for if I need to replace them!

 

As for the armed driver, you've jogged a memory there.  I'd forgotten that years ago I was at an open day on the Derwent Valley where they did an armed hold-up of the train, re-enactors dressed as cowboys stopping and storming the passenger service.  At least it was a balcony-ended carriage, but the R&H 88ds on the front, and the very British weather, caused a bit of anachronism-stew

[009 micro modeller]

13 hours ago, Ben B said:

As for the armed driver, you've jogged a memory there.  I'd forgotten that years ago I was at an open day on the Derwent Valley where they did an armed hold-up of the train, re-enactors dressed as cowboys stopping and storming the passenger service.  At least it was a balcony-ended carriage, but the R&H 88ds on the front, and the very British weather, caused a bit of anachronism-stew

 

That’ll be the Trailblazers group I think - probably less relevant to the location (York) than some of the other re-enactment groups based there but not as anachronistic as this: https://m.facebook.com/murtonpark/photos/a.121107874606755/4416728385044661/?type=3

 

I do like it though...

 

 I understand they also have a pump trolley - I don’t know if they ever chase the balcony carriage with it

[009 micro modeller]

I was reminded of this thread while reading the BRM article about the G scale version you built for the Hornby competition - does that layout have its own RMWeb thread?

[Ben B]

10 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I was reminded of this thread while reading the BRM article about the G scale version you built for the Hornby competition - does that layout have its own RMWeb thread?

Not yet- I was waiting until after the BRM piece had appeared.  I had planned to after the Hornby competition deadline, but thought I'd hang on.  Hopefully I'll get something up on here in a couple of days with some of the unused pics from the article