Steph' H

Ooo looking forward to seeing this develop!

Happy Birthday Tom! Best wishes.

I still like that loco! I have a recollection that Ivan at IP had it at some point but I might be wrong. Love the B&W shot. Sadly my line is not really operational atm, we took it up to move house, then that fell through and an oval was replaced down just to run on while things sorted themselves out and that was 5 years ago. Now the neighbours having work done so that ovals been up and down this year annoyingly. Fingers crossed for next year right now ...

Love this photo Tom. I can feel the Skarloey/Talyllyn railway atmosphere from here. The colour balance and palette of your scenery work, materials and locomotives harmonize really nicely and it really shows in the black and white images as the monochrome tones work well. I am one of those people who would incline to painting everything, grass, trees, ground etc to unify (seen more in armour modelling dioramas and the like) it but seeing this proves to me it's not necessary with good choices of materials, colours etc. Keep the photos coming please!

Aww, those eyes! Good to hear she's keeping food down now. Scrambled eggs are one of my human go to mild foods too if I feel under the weather Fingers crossed she's over it now!

Still following this thread with interest! Looking forward to the next build with anticipation. How's your collie today?

Lovely pictures Ian! I always love it when you update a thread, it's a visual treat with you photography and models showcasing what wonders 7/8ths can produce.

This just keeps getting better and better. Just loving how the vegetation is layering up and looking lush.

Got to say I only post on here extremely rarely! But this, well I just have to comment to say how gorgeous this is. This is like seeing the paintings come to life! So much atmosphere. Steph'

Check out #TwitterModelTrainShow on Twitter. An attempt to do this on Saturday on that platform .

That is a lovely photo! Six years ago... Arrrgh Makes me realise how long it's been since I worked on a loco. You have reignited my modelling spirit. Time to have at the loco I've been procrastinating over I think. Good luck with the dreaded burrowing fiends. I will be awaiting developments and photos of your line with anticipation.

Goodness is it that long ago? Checking out your video channel I am glad to see you still have the hunslet type loco, I'm sure we ran that at Robs one year? I've always liked it. I'm glad we don't get rabbits looking at that but I want to know where all my ballast goes when the local Blackbirds are busy chucking it everywhere... I need to get more yet again I must say if I have to build again I would like a more open line like yours as my bushes and trees are getting a bit much these days.

Watching with interest, I think I remember your previous line. The Bagnall looks fab, as does everything else. Those photos and vids ooze atmosphere!

Ha I like the Starwars model. Now did Tatooine have a 2ft narrow gauge line I wonder!

People might get the wrong idea if its too steamed up Seriously though, it doesn't actually look that bad tbh. I can live with it I think. I wish Airfix would re-issue these Wallace and Gromit kits, I regret not getting the Landy and Tractor....

Now as I was working on all this my eyes fell on an old Airfix 1/12th Austin kit based on Wallace and Gromits van. I had built this pretty much out of the box a few years ago and it had served on my garden railway for a while. However I had never been happy with the molded rust patches and dents etc. However hard I tried I could not get the rusty bits to look right. So I decided to do some work on it in time for the November exhibition. I decided to do a restoration job on it, and it turned out I ended up using the same filler etc you would use on a full size car! I used car body filler to fill the dents and rust patches. this stuff sanded much better than your usual "milliput type" model filler. I find I use this stuff for loads of things, brick slips for walls, landscaping, filling, molding etc! Another thing about the kit were there are quite a few molded on details, the most obvious to be where the flat windscreen wipers. This was easily solved by removing the molded detail with a knife and sanding and constructing a pair of new ones from plasticard. I wanted to do new door handles etc but time was against me so they didn't get done (still on the round to it list now). I also kept the clunky toy like door hinges and I'm still thinking about how to sort them out too Once I had filled all the holes and molded detail I went about adding just a few tiny rust patches. The van was then given a paint job using Citadel acrylics applied by using a fine sponge. I like this method of painting and have even used it on locomotives etc! I could have added more wear to the paint job using the hairspray technique but decided to keep the van in used but not wrecked condition. A different coloured "new" door was added! However I did have time to add some detail to the inside of the cab. The seats were removed and detailed with wear including a hole with the filling leaking out added. The ripped leather was sculpted using milliput and the filling was a few strands of cotton wool pushed into the hole! It doesn't show well in the photo but it looks ok in real life. I'm seriously thinking now of adding a bit more wear to the top of the seat too. A vintage map of Lincolnshire was printed out and put on the passenger seat and a tiny note book was made up and slid onto the dashboard. The glove compartment hold a few magazines and a football program (from my beloved Derby County!). Looking at this picture I need to do something with the pedals as well as the hinges too! Normal viewing means you cannot see the hinges or pedals well though though as the door less open that here and its not obvious the hinges are not attached to the door! Since I showed the van off its been pointed out I need to paint some of the the grill as they were not all chromed, just the surround! I have to say I am not a vintage van expert! As I think about it just now as I type the hinges might be best built as the real thing, maybe using brass..... and perhaps fix the door in one position rather than have it posable. Sadly the windscreen plastic had clouded as the model had been on a shelf in sunlight and I still don't know if its possible to rescue it? Does anyone have any ideas? One last thing it was possible to do was model a missing tail light with just the wires and connector left and no glass! An MOT fail there then!

Anyhow, work continued to detail parts of the landscape etc! A broken skip frame casting I had been given by a friend in the trade was embedded in the water and rusted up and more reeds planted, they still look sparse in this picture! Now as the layout is set in early spring (there are daffodils and dandelions in flower) some bare trees were required, so out into the garden I went. Thankfully we had been pruning the previous year and I pile up the cuttings to create wildlife habitats so a plentiful supply of suitable twigs was waiting. As the setting is coastal I didn't want big trees. However these trees did add some much needed height to the layout and being at the front add visual interest. Taking this photo revealed I hadn't blended the skip frame into the water well enough, so work was needed. Amazing how you see on a photograph things your eyes miss in front of you. I find this with my artwork too, holding the painting I'm working on up to a mirror often reveals things I would rather not see The area around the shed was starting to get worked on... I'll admit this is as far as I've got, but writing this is making me want to get out to the shed and work on it. But its still a mite chilly out there! I want to add some ferns etc growing out of the low retaining wall. .

Thanks! having seen your lovely Two Sisters farm I can say that is right up my street too!

Thank You! Not sure as to exhibitions as we don't have any invites as of now, but there is a possible in 2017 if it comes off.

Yes Paul, we are probably moving... the garden line has been taken up atm too Not found a new place yet though, its got to have a garden big enough to house the outdoor line etc LOL

Blimey its been a long time! The Layout did get sort of finished in the last months of 2014 and appeared at Lincoln Garden Railway show in the November, sadly the last time Steve Warrington would organise it. A sad loss to the garden railway scene was Steve. I thought I'd better get the thread up to date! We left the layout with the basic ground work going in. I continued working on this using the same methods to produce the grass and vegetation. The pond had to be done too. This was simply done using a layer of clear plastic over the slightly detailed bottom of the pond. The plastic was then treated to several coats of varnish to provide ripples, in this some scatter was trapped to produce a green scummy algae layer. This has worked OK but not as good as I wanted so I do think I will revisit the pond with some sort of resin water product at some point. It seems to produce such nice results. The vegetation is starting to develop more here, its a bit sparse and "modelly" at the moment! The problem with scenery, to me, is the larger the scale the harder it is I find to get it right! I have been adding all sorts of odds and ends ranging from painted plastic plants to real vegetation to try to get an overgrown look! These work in progress pics are a bit cruel! But I must say even now 2 years on I still have a mountain of reeds and plants that need adding! Plus I might be loosing my workshop so I'm not sure where I will go with it! I should add there is no backscene because of how the locos are operated, some are manual control, via the cabs so you need to be able to reach them to drive! Its awkward leaning over a back scene, however when the layout is set up at home I think a backscene will be added at some point as its run from the front! The low relief shed has been added at the end of one of the sidings, but has yet to be detailed etc You can also note that between the shots the van has been worked on too!

Well we had a successful trip to SWING2014... till I collapsed on the way home and ended up in Chichester A&E Must be all that excitement Model Railway exhibitions cause Happily we were to continue home after about 5 hours! But I've been somewhat under the weather since..... So all that caused a short break in the layout building, but as the Telford NG exhibition draws ever closer I have to get the thing into some sort of order.... So the landscaping on the extension has commenced. I built up the land profile using traditional polystyrene and card formers (to keep the weight down) and then covered the whole landscape with a layer of newspaper, the reason for this last step was I have learned to my cost if I tried to cover the polystyrene with my hard landscaping made up of car body filler the polystyrene melts! The news paper layer seems to stop this. So it was out with the evil smelling filler and open with all the shed doors and windows! One thing with this way of forming the landscape is if you mix it right it only takes a short time to set and it results in a fairly light very solid landscape. Plus it can be worked with files and saws etc later on. Next up was ground works. I find in my large scale that real soil makes for great, well, soil! I try to get some detail in to the base ground cover before adding the vegetation. So onto my grass and plants, so far (as we are up against time now) I have kept it simple using hanging basket liner glued down and then ripped off (making sure the backing material side of the liner is uppermost so the fibers rip away). Stupidly I tied to cut a corner on the liner, before I have used the gardman range which looked nice as slightly worn late winter long grass but I just picked up some cheap liners this time and once they were down they were too "blue" in tone and too fluffy... so it was back out to the garden centre and I got the ones I should have got in the first place..... Anyway, we now have basic grass (still needs a hair do, and pruning though) and I have begun the long process of making up and planting longer grass and weeds, its never ending! I also need to add more weeds to the ballast. This will start to get the layout sections to match, but I fear we may have to be a bit of a "work in progress" in July at Telford. All this is actually me just putting off committing to the buildings... I had originally intended to model a sand pit hopper and fill skips, but time now makes me think for now I'll have a change of plan and make up a couple of brick yard buildings or loco servicing on the left hand board. But as I pretty much wing it as I build, anything could happen yet. Plus I suspect I'll end up still building the sand hopper for the final thing eventually! ATB Steph'

Well, the farm just got set up to prepare it for its first outing to an exhibition in 2014, we will be at Bognor Regis at SWING2014 on Saturday 17th May. When it got set up I found that all my long grass was flat, amazing what a wash and blow dry will achieve! Now I don't think I've ever given a layout a hair do before! I also remembered the hens and chicks I had in a drawer and got round to putting them in place, its amazing how useful some of those childhood toys from Brittens have become! Also today I had to whip up a driver for the Ruston, sadly he will have to make do with a temporary paint job as I don't have time to do a good one.... Now to find the stock boxes! All this has stopped work on the longer version which as at least now got ballast and the start of landscaping... its supposed to appear at Telford in July....... I suspect I have my work cut out! If anyone is at the Exhibition on Saturday please say Hi! ATB Steph'

I agree about the WW1 layout, I perhaps actually think that we should be commemorating the armistice rather than the start of that conflict. Now as regards the extension to the farm I now need to find the 4foot x 2 foot board of mdf for the scenic contour boards.... just how do you loose something like that? Must be in my shed somewhere surely!

Humm, well so far the WW1 layout hasn't gone anywhere, other stuff is getting in the way. So I thought I'd amuse myself by adding to Snipe Fen Farm. The layout has a new home so I can leave it up and work on it without mucking up the rest of the house too much. At the moment I cannot run on it as the fiddle yard isn't attached but hopefully I'll be able to move it to another side of the room to allow the extra 2-3 foot required LOL. So far two new boards have been built and attached and I have hand laid the track, along with cheating by adding a Peco G45 left hand point. I will be burying the sleepers well on the latter! I could have built the point but I took the easy way out! The track is a new try being code 250 aluminum.... I'm not sure I'll be sticking with this as I have yet to find a metal black that works on ali, and I like the look of the original peco 250 NS when it was blackened and painted. Still we will see. The sleepers are still at the very rough stage and need more work. The idea is I will be adding a sand loading building to the rear siding giving a new use for the extended line to contrast with the smaller farm line layout. I see V skips in my future. I also want to try scenics with water elements too in 7/8ths so we will be experimenting over the winter I think. I expect progress to be slow, its taken 3 months to get from the bare boards to this far! Steph'