Fiddlehead Light Railway OO9

[brynnydd]

Hello everyone! I just recently got enough space in my new apartment to have a proper layout (instead of a box of unitrack that I could click together when I had the time space). I also discovered micro-layouts, and specifically inglenook ones around the same time so I thought I'd try making a bookshelf layout. After fiddiling about with inglenooks, I realized I didn't have the space to do a full size one, but I could do a "mini-inglenook". But that did feel a bit simple in puzzling, so I was very excited when I found this:

 

So I went out and bought a 1"x8" (actually 7.25" wide for some reason?) board for my baseboard that I cut down to 28" long and started testing out how things would fit. The cabin and signal box are both kits, the water tower, fence and signal are scratch built. I was hoping to make something suitably Welsh countryside themed, but as things progressed they started to get more and more Americanized, into an almost logging layout goods depot. Please ignore the orange goods vans in this photo. I will end up repainting them as I liked neither the color nor my poor attempt at large lettering and numbering. Here the layout is also sitting where it will live once complete.

 

I have a background painting figures and making terrain for TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, so while this was my first layout, I wasn't going in completely blind. Here the hills have been cut, textured, glued and painted, and the ground given a base color pre-turfing:

 

Here is the layout flocked with gravel paths. You can also clearly see my cheap homemade buffers at the end of the tracks, just a matchstick cut and glued to the track, I was inspired by more local logging lines here.

 

Testing the track and cleaning it was a bit nerve-wracking. I think my next layout won't have so much vegetation near the track as a result. But it did work in the end, here with my only loco, Skarloey, happily pulling and pushing my favorite wagon along.

 

The final step was to make a backscene on some foam core board. I tried for a blustery, stormy day that's often seen in the sage-steppe biome, which is what this layout seemed to morph into over the time I spent with it. Oh well, I really like how it came out and learned a bunch about the process while having lots of fun. And now I can whittle away my free time with some really lovely shunting puzzles. I am now eyeing a shelving unit to make a full sized inglenook now however. :)

 

Thanks for taking a look!

Edited January 5 by brynnydd
Spelling

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Excellent - thank you for sharing your layout here.  Looks like you’ve made very good use of your head-start in scenic modelling in creating something good to look at that will be enjoyable to use.  Always nice to see something in Narrow Gauge posted here too, Keith.

[brynnydd]

11 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Excellent - thank you for sharing your layout here.  Looks like you’ve made very good use of your head-start in scenic modelling in creating something good to look at that will be enjoyable to use.  Always nice to see something in Narrow Gauge posted here too, Keith.

Thank you very much for your comment. I hope to continue to learn new skills and ideas here for my next little micro layout. :)

[brynnydd]

The FLR was very kindly featured in this year's spring issue of the Micro Model Railway Dispatch on page 58.

You can read it here: https://micromodelrailwaydispatch.com/

 

Thank you Ian for all your great work in creating this lovely magazine.

[Ian Holmes]

1 hour ago, brynnydd said:

The FLR was very kindly featured in this year's spring issue of the Micro Model Railway Dispatch on page 58.

 

 

Thank you Ian for all your great work in creating this lovely magazine.

Thank you for sending your layout in for publication. Without the contributors there wouldn't be a magazine 

 

Ian