Building A Modular Branch Line - 00 Gauge

[That Model Railway Guy]

Hi everyone, hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!

 

Work on the layout this week has been focussed around getting the basic structure for a tunnel in place on the new curved module that joins to the fiddle yard. This will likely be the highest point on the layout so I needed to get this sorted out before I can start building a storage rack for it (and the rest of the layout).

 

For the tunnel mouth itself I used the Peco Modelscene double track portal - as seen below before any work had been done to it. I originally discounted these because I thought they looked a bit cheap and nasty but after I wasn't able to find anything else I liked the look of, I decided to take a shot on it - the idea being that I could try touching it up with a bit of paint and at least if it all went horribly wrong I hadn't paid out loads of money for it. (I think it was £5)

 

 

Even though the layout only has a single line, I went for a double track portal for clearance since the tunnel is on a curve - and also because I preferred the proportions over the single track version. As a heritage railway I think it's more in keeping anyway to believe that this was once a double track line that the preservation society have only restored as a single line.

 

 

The moulded detail was actually better than I expected (The images PECO has online don't really show this). The portal did have some flashing on it which I cut away along with these ejector pin marks that were moulded into the plastic.

 

 

I did my best to remove the most noticeable ones and then scribed the stones back in.

 

 

Next the entire portal was given a coat of sand/tan paint...

 

 

...followed by a coat of grey over the top which I then dabbed away with a tissue to reveal some of the tan colour underneath.

 

 

This gave me some variation in the stone colour which you can see a bit better in the cruel close up here!

 

 

This was finished off using the classic technique of painting the stonework white, then wiping it away to leave only paint between the stones giving the effect seen above.

 

 

Finally I added a bit of an interior to hide the supports that would be holding up the landscape above. I used Slater's embossed brick sheets for this as they were thin enough to bend. Unfortunately the brick sheet wasn't wide enough to reach to the floor so you can see I've added a stone strip along the bottom to make up for this. Everything was painted using similar techniques to the portal.

 

It's not a particularly long interior but it should be enough to maintain the illusion should anyone decide to get down to eye level and look inside. Just need to sort my images out and then I'll have some more progress to share on how I installed this on the layout  

[That Model Railway Guy]

Apologies for the lack of updates. It's been a busy week capped off by my SE&CR D Class arriving on Friday, so much of the weekend was spent putting it through it's paces on the layout! 

 

(P.S. You'll also catch a glimpse of the new tunnel in place during the video too!)

 

 

[That Model Railway Guy]

Where does the time go! A couple of posts ago I said I would share an update on the tunnel once I had it installed on the layout. Well it's a bit later than I anticipated and it's been on the layout for a while now but here are some pictures... finally.

 

 

The tunnel itself will lead into the fiddle yard on the next module. It's acting as a scenic break, which is why it's so short. The landscape over the portal is chicken wire held up by two columns of polystyrene which has all been covered in paper mâché and plaster bandage. It drops off quite sharply at the moment but obviously the flat bits of baseboard you can see before the tunnel won't be staying flat for long.

 

Fortunately I remembered to ballast the track and paint the sides of the rails first before adding the hill. I also painted the baseboard and polystyrene inside the tunnel black so that it would absorb as much light as possible - hopefully making the tunnel appear much darker than it is in reality.

 

I'm quite pleased with how the portal looks in situ too and all being well it'll look even better once it's surrounded by grass and bushes.

 

 

The back of the tunnel also has a little access hatch held on by magnets as seen below. This allows me to get inside easily should anything derail or if I'm cleaning the track by hand. It's absolutely overkill for a tunnel this short but it was fun putting it together and it's very satisfying the way it all snaps together!

 

 

 

Now that the Summer is over I'm hoping I'll have some more time to spend on the layout - ideally I'd like to get the majority of the scenery done before the end of the year if possible. The next big project though is to get all the points on the scenic side of the layout motorised which I'm really looking forward to doing  

[That Model Railway Guy]

Following on from yesterday, here's another video that shows the construction of the tunnel from start to finish, including the access panel on the back...