Dbr1295

Hi David, no worries about the name mix up. Good luck with your project.

Hi Andy, no idea about the rubberised horsehair in NZ, upholsterers would be where I would have tried as well. Must be an English thing? Re the wire, I just collect the stuff from were ever. I've got old appliance leads, off cuts from house wiring, stuff from work, any bit of useful looking wire I grab it. In the case of the hedges I used a lead from an old broken jug.

Andy, I used 2 methods for the hedges. The ones against the back scene are simple strips cut from a Mininatur grass mat I acquired off that chap who usually attends the Hamilton exhibitions, he sells a lot of European scenery items. I roughed them up around the edges and glued them to the back scene. The other, 3 dimensional hedges were more of a head ache. I tried the dish pad type method but I couldn't get them to look right. As I live rurally I spend a lot of time observing the countryside driving home at night. Hedges are just individual big shrubs planted close to each other in a line, most methods of making hedges make them look like one long shrub, not individuals. The method I came up with is a little time consuming, especially if you have a lot to do. I ended up making about 40 at a time. What I did was get an old jug cord, stripped approx. 25 -30mm of insulation off 1 phase and twisted it together 5mm long at the insulation end. Cut it off and solder the twisted bit (the trunk). I then bent each individual strand out into the shape of a shrub and glued on cut string as pet the trees. Spray paint matt black. Then spray with glue and sprinkle on Woodland Scenics coarse turf. Once dry, gently squeeze to a hedge sort of shape, spray with matt varnish, sprinkle on a small amount of Woodland Scenics blended turf green mix. This has some small amount of yellow in it and gives the impression of the flowers often seen on hedges at this time of year. Seal with more varnish. Once you have enough for a hedge line you just need to make holes in your scenery and plant at the appropriate distance apart. Hope this is some help. Cheers, Les

As the evening sun sets, 5796 meanders its way down the branch with the last train of the day.

Hi David and Mikkel, Thank you both for your generous comments. Yes, as Andy says I am Les, and David as you can see there is at least 2 of us GW modellers out here! Andy's Hawkinsfield Junction topic is certainly worth a look. I think the trick with making small layouts look more spacious is avoiding trying to fit too much in. One of the reasons why I found my NZR layout grinding to a halt was I was trying to include a bit of everything in. Basically keep it simple, and for me who is more into building the models rather than operation you can get away with it. Though saying that American modeller Lance Mindheim has some excellent ideas around simple layouts with lots of operating potential, and his website is worth looking at. Also another trick is to keep the buildings smallish. I find that gives an impression of more space. Cheers, Les

NZR Xp class fruit wagon

Hi Andy, real nice little scene. I especially like the rust effects, the step ladder & track. Cheers, Les

2260 arrives with the afternoons pick-up goods, then moves off onto shed. This little effort was supposed to be a quick diversion from my NZR project, but I look at the pictures and see that the loco needs crew, weathering, lamps and decent couplings. The idea was just to have a layout to run my RTR stock on but the more I get into it, the more I feel I need to improve the standards of the stock. Always trying to improve can't be a bad thing as long as we are enjoying ourselves.

Andy, thanks again for the kind feedback. No, I won't be exhibiting, I will be a mere spectator and shopper. While the layout is designed to be reasonably easy to dismantle and set up, I never really considered it for exhibiting. And, while it is fully working, it is far from finished.

Thanks Adrian. Don't know if they ever ended up on GWR loco sheds, but good enough for my train set for now. Cheers,Les

A couple of pictures from the loco shed gate, (well when I get around to making the wall and gate they will be). Both loco's (45xx & 22xx) by Bachmann. Water tower is Wills. Shed is scratch built. Still needs gutters and down pipes and doors, weathering etc. Been like this for 15 years plus, so no hurry..... Stone work is scribed Das and roof tiles from wall paper. Not entirely happy with colour of roof. Was painted with a Humbrol slate colour I brought cheap many, many years ago, but it came out greenish. Maybe someone can tell me if there are such things as green slates? Cheers, Les

The Goods Shed This is the Wills kit but with a new stone base, made from their dressed stone, and I replaced the moulded downpipes with ones from plastic rod. Not sure what the technical term is, but the lump of wood at the door was made from styrene suitably distressed to look like wood. Still needs final weathering and door handles. Pavers are also by Wills. Colouring is by dark oak wood dye, which comes out a nice grey colour on top of a coat of white primer. It was applied by having a small amount on a rag and gently rubbing on with my finger. I got the idea from an Allan Downes article I once read, where he uses it for walls. The slabs of wood between the tracks in the background are also coloured with this dye, which is probably the colour it should be. Structure in front is the passenger platform, awaiting painting and a top... Cheers, Les

NZR Class Db1180 on the no.28 shunt

Hi Andy, Ah yes Dymstock, I couldn't remember its name. Lovely layout. I know Lymbridge Harbour as well, also very nice. I most likely will be at the Cambridge show so I will keep an eye out for you. Re the trees here's some pictures showing the glue & varnish I use, the cut up twine and a armature ready for foliage. Hope they are of some use.

Thanks to all for your feedback. Model photography is a new aspect of the hobby I am enjoying, but only recently, so there are no "bare bones" pictures of the layout. For those that are interested, the bench work is 3 1200 x 500 boards made from 65 x 20 dressed pine frame spaced every 300, with 12mm mdf top. Location is by pins and bushes I turned up out of scrap stainless steel and they are held together by 6mm coach bolts. Legs are 45 x 32 pine and the 2 outer boards piggy-back off the middle one. Here a some pictures of the "ugly" side of town, i.e. very much still work in progress.

Here are a couple of before and after pics

Here's a track plan Cheers, Les

Hi Andy, thanks for the comments. I'm pretty sure from reading you thread that you used to have a small GWR layout on our local exhibition "circuit". Always had been a favourite of mine. Regarding the trees, the smaller ones are just Woodland Scenics fine leaf foliage. The larger ones are the armatures from a Woodland Scenics Realistic Tree Kit. There was I think 7 armatures and some clump foliage in it. I just used the armatures from these, didn't like the look of the foliage. Firstly I formed what looked like a reasonable tree skeleton. Next I cut up a whole lot of garden twine roughly 5mm long. I then spray the armature with spray glue and sprinkled the bits of twine on. Then a first coat of paint using grey undercoat from an aerosol. Then a coat of acrylic paints from an airbrush. I used a random mix of brown earth, light grey & white. I left a couple just grey but I'm not really happy with those. I'm still not totally happy with the browny tinge either but it is better. I have to admit I'm constantly looking at trees to work out how to get the right colours! After painting I spray with glue and sprinkle on Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf of an appropriate shade. Finally a coat of matt varnish from an aerosol. Hopefully this makes sense. I've got some armatures I haven't put foliage on yet so I'll try and get some photo's posted of these and some of the process. I can't claim ownership of the idea, it's just a combination of what other people have done before me.

Thank you. This is as much of the layout that has scenery so far, very much a work in progress. No track plan as yet, but I shall draw one up and post it soon.

The beginnings of this layout go back 15 years or so. This was started as a small portable layout as we only had a small house at the time. Three boards were built 1200 x 500, giving a total length of 3600 912 feet) including fiddle yard. Track was laid and point motors installed and that was as far as it got. I then began to seriously model New Zealand Railways in Sn3 1/2 and slowly began to build a collection of stock, and this layout was set aside in the garage. Later on we built a house with a dedicated train room to build an NZR layout in and the little layout was set up against one wall to use as a test track for the stock I was building. Progress on the NZR layout was moving very slowly and I felt the need to complete a layout, so the little layout was resurrected. The idea was to try out scenery methods and to run my nineties vintage R-T-R BR Western region stock. Eighteen months in and here is a few pic's of where we are at. Currently it has no name hence vague topic title.

At rest

Long time to wait between trains...

The driver of the Morris must have left it in the road in order to get the shot of the 45xx

Ngahinapouri,

Also in the Waikato. NZR 3/16" & OO BR. Les