Booking Hall

The roadway and parapet over the tunnel entrance is now finished, apart from weathering. Next up is the low relief backs of buildings to screen the view into the fiddle yard box. I had thought of some run-down tenement type houses, but now I'm thinking of a block of art-deco flats.

Hi viper-polo, thank you! and thanks for asking. I use a mix of card. The factory was built, as per the instructions (Model Railway Scenery), using laminated cereal box card. Most of the other buildings have been built using offcuts of mounting board in various thickness, which I get free from a picture framer. He has so much that he burns it in his stove and is very happy for some of it to be put to a more creative use!

Looks very promising. I will follow with interest.

I've made a start on the deck of the roadway over the tunnel.

Very nice! Lots of atmosphere in a small space.

Pump house now built, from card and brickpaper, with a concrete paper overlay. Windows are cut down ones from the Scalescenes goods shed windows print on film. Vandalized door from balsa. All based on a picture I found on the net (photo © David Bullock). It will be weathered before being properly 'planted'.

Thanks, by the way!

I might have to buy another boxfile to put some of the buildings in, but then - I can't just carry around a virgin boxfile, I'd have to put some track and some urban environment in, and then . . . oh dear, I can see where this is leading . . .

Bit more work done on the water tower.

The water tank is now assembled, and awaits either internal detailing, of a lid/roof, whichever I feel up to making in a day or so. The tower it will sit on will have to wait until I (hopefully) obtain some more plastic H section at Skipton model railway exhibition this weekend. I struggled to make three of the panels, as the microstrip was reluctant to weld to the base material. I half thought this might be due to the fact that both materials derive from my early days of model railways, forty years ago!, but in the end, it transpired that my bottle of plastic weld liquid, which is only two years old, had lost most of its solvent properties. Some new liquid acquired via the club made the final panel and tank assembly a doddle to complete.

Thanks for this suggestion Stubby (and also to Andy, who suggested the same idea in a PM). I did try it, but found that not all the petals were exactly the same shape, and didn't fit perfectly, added to which, I had thrown a lot of them away! So I decided not to bother!

All the fencing is now in place and basic grass and some weeds planted. Still more to do the get that urban dereliction look though. Construction of the sectional steel water tank has also started. I'm making this out of plastic card with microstrip as the flanges to the plates. The shaped pressing in the centre of each panel is being simulated by a flower-shaped piece of 10 thou card punched out using a flower punch borrowed from a friend. Every other 'petal' has been cut off to leave just four. The negative of this should appear on the inside of the tank, of course, but I can't think of a way to do that! Won't matter if I decide to put a lid on it though . . .

Thanks Jerry, I have to be in the right frame of mind to make the fencing, as it's a bit fiddly!

I've had to ease off working on the layout, as household management took a slightly hostile view of time spent on it rather than on other 'important' jobs, but I have managed to carry out a bit of landscaping adjacent to the factory siding, and I laid some teddy bear fur between the canal wall and railside. I fully expected this to fold up easily when the box front was closed, but no, it didn't, so it looks like I'm stuck with having to re-attach it each time the layout is displayed. For those who are interested, this is my method of making post and wire fences. For the posts I cut 2mm thick balsa into 2mm widths and to a length that will make a scale 4ft post plus some planting depth. I randomly angle or cut a spear point on the top and 'distress' the wood with my fingernail to represent decay and damage. Then I soak them in dark(ish) wood stain. To assemble the fence, I have made a template, covered with double sided tape. This has the outline of the posts at a scale 5ft 6inch intervals, and lines for four wires. I stick the posts down to this and then lightly stretch E-Z line (fine) along them, securing at each post with a touch of superglue on a cocktail stick. When dry, after removal from the template, the fence can be set into holes in the landscape and lightly stretched to fit the required space which makes the wires taut. After laying grass I dry brush some of the posts with Gunmetal enamel to suggest that silvery appearance of weathered timber. Angled support struts can be added at the ends of runs and at intermediate posts on long runs. Once fixed, random wires can be cut if a more derelict fence is required, with perhaps an occasional post snapped off or bent at a drunken angle.

That's very nice Jerry, you've got some good atmosphere there.

A really excellent model, I'm envious!

I decided that I just couldn't live with the non-vertical pipe and successfully managed to unglue it and refix it where it should have been in the first place! After that I painted the soft landscape areas and made the first post and wire fence to go alongside the factory siding. After that, I couldn't resist putting the two boxes together just to see how the overall scene was looking, and I'm pretty satisfied.

Thanks Huggy, glad you're enjoying it.

A start made on the ballasting, and I've added a pipe to supply the boiler house with water from the canal. Unfortunately, I've not got it vertical, and I know it's going to bug me; but I have a feeling that if I try to break the glue bond and reset it the wall supports might suffer. Why haven't humans evolved to have four hands!!!

The last few days have seen the lightning conductor added to the chimney and a start made on the landscaping of the boiler house yard. I've also added some corrugated card to build up the ground levels around the tracks. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realised i had a problem, in that what was the purpose of the short siding adjacent to the canal? It didn't serve either the station yard OR the factory complex, so the only other reason for it being there was to serve the canal. Now this would be fine if I had enough room to build a loading wharf, but I don't. In the end, I decided to make it into a private siding associated with the canal for some purpose long since gone!! This gives me an excuse to add a dilapidated gate and some weather-beaten post and wire fencing (not the plastic stuff you can see in the picture, that's only there to test the idea). The siding can be fairly overgrown as locos won't have to venture very far into it to retrieve the odd wagon parked up there. I had also though of putting a derelict and semi-roofless hut by the tunnel mouth, but even a small hut fills the space a bit too much for my liking, so I've conceived the idea of a small, elevated sectional steel water tank which could have a small timber-built valve chamber inside the support stanchions. The purpose of this could have been to provide an emergency water supply for the elevated streets above the tunnel during the war, but I plan to make it disused and full of weeds etc. to avoid having to model water again! The tank panels are based on the 4ft square Braithwaite panels, and are an ideal candidate for 3D printing. Unfortunately, our club expert has just gone on his holidays, so I might have a go at making them from card to start with.

Hi Steve, thanks for the kind comments. In the other box I used a mix of Javis black ash and real coal fire ash, brushed into place and then secured using neat Pledge Multi-surface polish. This gives a run-down urban, dirty ballast feel to the track. I'll use a similar mix in the sidings and the area under the footbridge, but then will lighten it a little towards the tunnel, to give the impression of the track being a little more cared for! I will probably add some sand to the mix here.

Alternately hiding inside from both the sun AND the rain this weekend has resulted in some further detailing on the layout. I've added rainwater pipes and a lamp to the boiler house, and coal and kindling on the floor, flow and return pipework to the factory, efflorescence on the loading bay wall and a dilapidated corrugated iron fence between the railway and boiler house yard. Now I can landscape the yard and add plenty of industrial 'clutter'.

Thank you Luke, that's much appreciated.

Buildings and retaining wall now weathered, and factory loading dock built.

Hi Simon, yes, the club's resident 3D printing expert made them for me on the club's Vellemann printer. Setting up should take around 5 minutes I reckon, everything just slots into place. I'm already thinking about extending on the other side of the fiddle yard box though . . .!! The ultimate modular layout?