Dbr1295

Contemplation

All 3 trees are planted and I think I've achieved the effect I was after. Cheers, Les

A couple of pictures showing some operations on the Wydgate branch. First of all we have 5819 with the mid morning passenger service drifting past the signal box. Next is a view of 4573 backing into the goods yard to to some shunting after bringing in the daily pick up goods. Cheers, Les

Hi Andy, Great to hear from you. Thanks for the feedback. I've sent you a PM, for some reason I wasn't aware of your last one. Cheers, Les

Hello All, First of the 3 trees along the station road has now planted. As mentioned much earlier in this thread I use Woodland Scenics tree armatures as a foundation for my trees. Over time, as I've made more over time I'm gradually improving the method. For the trees in this little scene I've used the bases that are supplied with these armatures for the first time to represent the roots. In the picture below there is base of the tree as supplied attached to the armature, and one attached to a finished tree, To improve it I attacked it with a knife to give a better representation of the individual roots. I only wish I had thought of this before I finished the tree! When I make a tree the after removing the flash from the armature moulding, the first thing I do is drill out the trunks of the trees to take a small nail to hold it when working and to fix it into the ground. After I planted the tree and glued it in place I applied shifted soil with a pipette to bed it in. On the whole I think it doesn't look to bad. Cheers, Les

Hello all, A bit of rain and all the flowers (and weeds) come out. Cheers, Les

Static grass done. Blend of various Woodland Scenics and Noch. Not quite so bright in real life. Flowers ready for planting later. Cheers, Les

I've always kind of liked this photo taken about 2000 / 2001 of a Dx class hauled passenger train at the north end of Hamilton New Zealand. It was taken from a distance with a long lens so there's quite a bit of compression. When I look at it i can almost hear the rails singing with the approaching train. Quality is a bit dodgy as it's been scanned from a print. It's all changed now, to my right there is a huge shopping centre and to the left the countryside has been replaced with an industrial area. Though on the bright side they are building a new passenger station and park and ride on this sight for a Hamilton to Auckland commuter service. Cheers, Les

Hello all, When I work on a scene it kind of evolves organically. I get an idea in my head and run with it, stop, think about it and sometime later carry on. The other day i was flicking through an old magazine and there was a picture of a Pannier and train on an embankment, well bu**er me, the weed and growth on the side of the embankment didn't half look like Woodland Scenics ground foam. I've never used it on the ground before, I use it to represent foliage on trees and bushes etc. So i thought I'd try some on the scene behind the station that I'm working on. As below. The jury is still out on how it looks, but there is potential. It's a mix of coarse turf and various shades of fine turf. Might need some more though. The brambles by the buffer and along the wall are teased out pan scourer with Woodland Scenics fine turf. The pictures below have some trees temporarily in place to give a feel of the sort of effect that I'm after. I'm kind of happy how it's coming along and think it will look quite good when done. Cheers, Les

Hello all, I've been working on the area behind the station building so i thought I'd show some work in progress pictures so that you can see how I create a scene. My original idea was to have the Station Masters house here, then I though about a small workshop. I tried some mock ups but wasn't entirely convinced. I ended up recreating a scene I quite liked from a book with a field lined with trees behind the station approach, In this case I wanted a slight rise in the ground away from the station, so as is visible in the picture, I used cork tiles to do this. I glued these together with PVA and then carved and sanded them to get the desired contour. Once happy, I applied polyfiller and painted earth brown from a test pot. Then I put on diluted PVA and covered this with shifted dirt from our garden. I glued down some small stones, which hopefully once the static grass is down will look like rocks protruding from the grass. So the next job will be to apply the static grass. Also in the scene is a little hut from the Wills scrap yard kit. This was actually bought by my son for his train set, but he lost interest and when I was packing his stuff away I came across the kit and thought I'd tax it and build it myself. It was painted aged concrete and dried brushed with various Humbrol greys and leather. Cheers, Les

This would be my favorite view of Little Muddle. The impression of a little used branch line curving away from the mainline and disappearing into the trees, wondering where it goes. Regards, Les

Hello all, A few pictures today of 5819 on a very short goods train. Taken form the road bridge. Passing a Pannier coaling. Coming to a stop. Cheers, Les

Love this picture. It has so much atmosphere. Cheers, Les

Morning all, A couple of pictures of 7754 working a short mineral train. Cheers, Les

Thanks for you feedback Jack. Much appreciated. Cheers, Les

Ha, yes, we had those here too..

Thanks, that's certainly makes sense.

2260 arriving on a short goods train. Cheers, Les

It does have a shape reminiscent of an early 1980's Japanese hatchback.

Hi Ian, Yes and no. The signal box is mainly a Ratio kit, but I replaced the brick base with a scratch built one from Wills dressed stone and Evergreen strip. There's some pictures on page 3. The interior, which isn’t very visible, I fabricated from plasticard and Evergreen strip. I see one of the windows is on a lean, they were a right pain to fit, the Tamiya plastic cement I normally use just wouldn't stick them. I think I use Revell contacter in the end. Cheers, Les

Hi All, I have been recently taking a lot of photos of the layout, mainly for my own pleasure, some of which I've been converting to B&W in an attempt to recreate a sort of impression of the era the layout is set in, the mid fifties. I thought I would share some of some of the photos as it has been a while since I've posted anything here. These couple of pic's I've tried to get an overall view of a whole train, which meant I had to stand a way back from the layout. I've had to crop them along the bottom so as to hide all the crap under the layout. I'll pop a few more up when I get some time. Cheers, Les

Hmmm. this new size limit for pictures is a bit awkward. Major resizing required. Here are the other 2 I took.

Hello all, It's been a long time since I've posted on this thread, and this has been for a number of reasons which have distracted me from working on the layout, and being on this forum. I have still done some modelling in this time, but for another project. Anyhow, I was in the train room with the camera, so took a few pics. The do show a few jobs that need doing, milk churns need painting, signal box finishing and bedding in, etc. Pictures below, so those who may be interested can see the layout is still in existence. Cheers, Les

Hi Andy, I've often considered Katikati would make a great model, so I'm very interested how this project will turn out. The sets in the goods yard are the Wills Granite Sets SSMP204. I think I actually got these from Bay Hobbies. There was a bit of work in getting them square and lined up neatly. I didn't have to do a large area so I put them all together on the bench, then put them on the layout. I think I ended up using 3 packets. To paint them I first primed them with Tamiya fine white primer, then I applied wood stain by wiping it on with a rag. I found that the stain when put on the white primer comes out grey. Applied unevenly it comes out with plenty of variation. I've attached a photo of the tin, I got it from Mitre 10 Mega. Used it for all sorts - fence posts, coaling stage, the ground around the engine shed, stone work. Useful stuff. Cheers, Les

Hi Scott, The fence posts are mainly Ratio with a few scratch built from wood. The corner round posts & bracing are just tooth picks. The wire itself is Ezi-line, which is a kind of elastic thread and really easy to use. Glued to the posts with superglue and that is a real pain, took ages and had to do it in parts. The colour was supposed to be rust but looks more orange. Next time I would use grey but I'm not going to change what I've already done! Cheers, Les