TechnicArrow

I'm liking how this scene is evolving developing. Fantastic work with the fascia - it's impressive how much presentation and lighting can benefit a model, especially for someone like me who inevitably leaves it until the end!

Cheers all! I have just realised I misnamed the topic, the Wrapping Paper box is the smaller 22L size, so I've corrected that one :-) Thank you! I spotted your layout a while ago, and seeing someone else squish a station into these boxes was definitely inspiration! That implies I have a plan... If I was sensible I might say filler or something, but I don't have any, so I might find some other material to smooth it off, or I'll rely on the thickness of the backscene to soften the joint. Thank you Andrew (dunno what I've done to those poor quote boxes but I can't undo it on mobile!) I don't know about reliable yet, but it's certainly more robust than my cardboard Alexandra Wharf is. Having a non-functioning layout is surprisingly demotivational, but there's always a guilty feeling about leaving it to work on other projects - I've gone around that circuit many times at this point!

When was my last post? August? Yikes! I guess I've been quite busy... but what with it now being January, the month of wet weekends when nothing is happening, I've been back to modelling - so settle down for a long read... First, we rewind back to last summer. I had completed most of the scenic work on Alexandra Wharf, and was beginning to wonder what was next. Whilst I have enjoyed the industrial micro-layout genre, I was pining for the roundy-roundy passenger stations of my home layout. So could I create a station-based microlayout? The requirements were simple: A station platform A signal box (and one or two working signals) A goods shed (or half of one at least) Capable of taking short branch line trains Footprint to fit the 22L "really useful box", not including a fiddleyard (most likely cassette based). I came up with the following: By having two tracks exit stage left, it has a sizeable loop for running around, and two decent capacity sidings. The platform dissappears into the rear corner so it can be as long as the viewer imagines it to be; both it and the stage exit are concealed by the goods shed. It can comfortably take a train formed of a coach and milk tank, or 3 wagons and brake van. The only slight oddity is to run around a train it must first be shunted out of the platform. Since I like my models to have at least one foot in reality, I searched around for suitable prototypes the station could take inspiration from. The only examples I could think of where the goods shed was placed directly opposite the station platform as here is the West Somerset railway. A little digging revealed that as luck would have it, I've practically created the layout of Watchet station although with an extra road bridge and a heavily reduced goods yard. I was happy in the knowledge I had devised a usable plan based loosely on an existing station, and was sitting on it over summer until I finished my degree and had some money to throw at it. Then during a conversation with a certain @DRoe96, it transpired he has a book covering the line with detailed plans, and from this he had drawn a digital 3D model of the station building... so there was to be no weasling out of it now! Time passed. I finished my Masters (with Distinction scraped in at 70.5%). I swapped from paying money as a student to earning it as a Graduate Engineer. I found my new lodgings have rather more space than previously. So what if I stepped up a size to the bigger 77L box - I could swap from Setrack to Streamline, and still have space to boot... These ideas continued to float around my head for a few months, until just over a week ago when a purchase was made and a delivery received. That's right, I'm finally upgrading from cardboard layouts! Although the corrugated-sandwhich baseboard of Alexandra Wharf has held up remarkably well for how many times it's been moved, I decided that it was high time I upgraded to a more durable, easier to handle material. And I must say I'm mightily impressed with this kit - even assembled dry it all fits snugly and is remarkably rigid. And it also comes with a lot of free landscaping material 😛 I set about gluing up the boards, for which I chose UHU. I left the end boards unglued to start, since I was yet to cut the stage-exit holes which would be easier when they're not attached, but kept them in place to ensure the backboard was vertical. I quickly realised my book collection wouldn't be enough weight, so found a new use for my camping equipment... And then it was play time! I experimented with many subtle variations to the initial layout to fit the slightly larger space. Whilst including a set of points for the left hand end of the loop could contain the maximum train length, it looked very un-railway-like, so kept to the original scheme. However, the station platform has slid to the left, to give it more depth and remove the awkward shunt-back from run-round manouvres. This has displaced the signal box to the front of the layout, where it helps to stop one from looking under the bridge and out of the scene. Also the goods yard is more defined. This does mean it's not really Watchet anymore... The backscene came free with RM Jan2022, and is an ideal setting and size; I have trimmed it down so the foreground and horizon are more suitably placed. The length will be fine once it's properly installed. And now some beauty shots. Whilst some might call it playing, it's vital to ensure the composition works 😉 Yep, I'm pretty happy with how things are looking! I proceeded to cut out the stage exits (using a utility knife, a tool I inexplicably had yet to obtain), glued on the end boards, and added rounded corners with thin white card. I'm therefore now ready to apply the backscene, which will be yet another new thing to trial, so we'll see how it goes! Although, right now, it looks like a complete mess of course...

Fascinating project! I can't help but marvel at the level of detail achievable with 3D printing - it seems a very different method of scratchbuilding, and I love it. And it's all brought to life by your painting and weathering. Keep up the good work!

I've yet to use the SMS boards, although I have plans to in the future for a more durable layout than my current collection. However, I have previously built a layout that fits the 22L Really Useful Box though, so roughly the same size as the board: Since it shares the dimensions, to within a cm, I found the scene depth (front-to-back) is fine, you can comfortably fit two parallel tracks or three if you don't want much else. The backscene height is far more restrictive, I got around this on the layout above by ensuring each building can be removed or separated at the required height. My best recommendation if you're planning things is to get some cardboard and make a mock-up - playing around with bits of track and trains is the best way to see what you can fit!

Bearley Yard? More like barely any time... This weekend I've finally found time to pay to modelling, and decided to attack this diorama somewhat. The plan was to fix the buildings to the base and start the ground cover. So first of all, I needed to add some interior detail to the office, since this wouldn't be accessible once fixed. Nothing extravagant, since the window and door openings are all quite small. There's a fireplace in the corner under the chimney, a small desk (made from a pallet) and a noticeboard on the wall (card and paper). Only this rear wall has any detail, the others are never visible so don't even have wallpaper! Then the two buildings were fixed to the base, and the fun could begin! The ground cover of choice is cheap-as-dirt soil from the garden. Carefully sifted, sieved and dried I find it to be an excellent material - there's nothing better than soil to represnt soil! Also, even when sifted there's still a good variation in particle size, meaning it takes the watered-down PVA very well (can you tell I'm studying geotech for my Master's 😛) The first layer went on very well, and remarkably didn't warp the surface too much. Looking better already! Then this afternoon I took it outside (far easier to dispose of errant soil) to touch up some bald spots, especially around the sleepers - given the nature of the siding I wanted the soil to be at least level with all the sleepers. Towards the end of the siding I built it up further around the bufferstop and a little in front, as a rudimentary crossing to the "rest of the yard". The built-up area is best seen from the "yard entrance", which was meant to be the rear of the diorama but is increasingly becoming a favourite view of mine... (And why yes, I am enjoying this house having a far better garden than my previous one). So overall, things are looking up, or at least better than they were before! It's a very simple thing but I'm really pleased with how this area has turned out, the bufferstop sinking into the soil looks great to me. Probably need to paint it though, it's the same colour as said soil so doesn't really stand out! Oh, and the lighting is of course still in place... not yet wired up though, this was running straight of the 5v supply which is almost certainly terrible for the LEDs. Which brings me to what's next. The main concern will be to properly wire up the 4 LEDs, for which I will need to determine what resistors I need, and source them. If anyone's got any tips I'm all ears. Then it's just more scenic work; potentially a wall or gate at the left hand end to denote the yard entrance, and I'm thinking a largish tree in the back right corner. It also needs more greenery; I'm planning to use this as a test bed for static grass, although that might have to wait until I have money to spend again. So don't hold your breath for the next installment, but you never know!

I'm glad to see these layouts resurrected again, I've found Rural Goods especially to be very inspirational so I'm always happy to see more Here's hoping your old photos are resurrected!

Not really a proper modelling update, but an update nevertheless... Once again, Alexandra Wharf is packed up ready to move, such is the life of a student. It's why I built the layout-in-a-box though, it makes moving a breeze... in theory! In practice, the varying additional layouts, bits and bobs add up to make quite a complex puzzle. We've got Alexandra Wharf, Eastnate Dairy and Bearley Yard to go away somehow, not to mention the locos and tools... The first step is to empty out the Really Useful Box (as per it's namesake, it tends to get used for storage), and plonl the layout in it. It won't fit like that though - just as well all the buildings come apart, isn't it! After much jiggling, packing, rearranging, and cursing at various modifications that mean things don't fit as neatly as they used to, it all goes away (to some degree). That's a lot of railway in a very small space! Now I've just got to do the rest of my room, before Wednesday! Chaos as usual. You've probably noticed that I haven't been very active recently, and that looks like a trend that will continue; I'm not even sure if I will unpack all of this at my next house, since I'm only htere for 3 months. But in the longer term I do have some grand plans up my sleeve, so all is not lost just yet...

Cheers @Jerry1975, @The Bandit, @ess1uk and @Kevin Johnson! Where did those two weeks go? Maybe they slipped down behind the sofa... Anyway, exams are now over (forever, whoop!); just a dissertation to research and write over the next 3 months before I go into the real world. In the meantime, I've been experimenting with LEDs - let there be light! When I saw that the Scalescense goods shed had fully detailed interiror walls, and that I could do similar for the office, I realised I'd need lighting to see it properly. And I thought about using my old battery-powered christmas LED set, but it's on it's last legs and a bit flickery - so I pulled it apart. It's a slightly better one, since rather than using two AAs and applying the 3v directly across each LED it has 3 AAs and a resistor to manage the current flow. However it's still got each LED in parallel, which is less than ideal - any subtle variations between LEDs will cause a current inbalance and they start blowing up. Either way, I pulled 4 LEDs off and started installing them. Both buildings have two LEDs, one interior and one exterior. In the office, the wires come up in one corner, with one glued to the ceiling and the other poked through oever the doorway: For the outside LED, I used a hacksaw to cut off the inverted-cone end and then sanded to hide the LEDness inside. I also used a card hole punching to make a cap, carefully painted black. It looks quite smart, if a little oversized: Then I did similar with the goods store, although I reduced the number of wires be combining the negatives. Just to confuse me I also painted the red wire black where it might be visible through the doorway. And then it was on to wiring them! I determined that in the original battery chain, each LED had approximately 4.5mA. To replicate this with just 4 LEDs I borrowed my housemate's resistor collection and got testing. But what power source? I could use the original battery box and eat through AA batteries, or I could use a handy spare USB plug that I have floating around... an endless supply of 5v, from my laptop, the mains, or a rechargeable power bank, anything! What you can't see in the above photo is the dodgy mess of bare ends and resistors powering the whole setup! I'm still experimenting with resistor combinations so haven't soldered anything other than the back of the LEDs. But it looks pretty good though - now I just need to add actual interiors!

I enjoyed this topic when you were building it, and I'm glad you're still enjoying it yourself! I've just had a quick read back through the topic, and had a few thoughts. Firstly, is the track Code 75, or just very well painted/ballasted 100? I'd like to try using 75, but I usually need the space-saving small radii points only available in 100. Secondly, how does your Gaugemaster Combi controller behave, especially with older rolling stock? I'm trying to diagnose the abysmal running qualities of Alexandra Wharf, and given the trackwork is spotless and my locos run fine on my home layout, fingers are pointing towards the controller. Finally, your grass and foliage around the bufferstops has made me think I ought to use my new photo-plank to try out static grass; any tips for cheap applicators or general technique?

It was about a year ago I started my Eastnate Dairy diorama, and with Alexandra Wharf nearing completion I thought it was time for another micro-layout for an interlude... This was mostly - nay, completely - inspired by the recent Scalescenes freebie, R002 Small Goods Store. Scalescenes kits are so good that I can never pass up the opportunity of a free one, even if I didn't have anywhere for it to go - so here we go! First up, a quick tip - to save wasted card and ensure all the parts are securely glued down, I cut the parts out first before fixing to the card. This means I have to cut everything out twice, but can drastically reduce the amount of card I need to use. You can also see that most of the components are the same colour as the carboard! The pier frame were very tedious to cut out... ...but they do look the part when assembled. I've also attached the wall frames, which give the flat walls some nice texture. Now all the walls up, coming along nicely... And a short while later it's fInished - and I absolutely love it! It's a superbly designed kit as usual, made even better by the fact the door is loose and able to slide open and closed. The other side has some neat detail on the hinged doors, so I posed one of them open; although I don't think it'll be seen that often! Very soon was the obvious question: where to put it? Clearly, I need to build a new layout, a rural goods yard this time... I considered a boxfile, and even bought a y-point and some track to test it out, but although I liked the (very simple) operation that would be possible I couldn't compose a seen that looked believable. Rural goods yards tend to be very spread out since they have a lot of space available, so a compact yard didn't make sense. So I've taken a leaf out of @Kevin Johnson's extensive book and settled for a photo plank. I realised that by raising it up slightly and leaving a space beneath it, it can sit neatly over the base of my monitor without taking up too much desk space! As you can see, it's dead simple - a doube-length of track glued to a card base, which as usual is a layer of cereal box card covering a thicker corrugated card base. Hmm, still a bit messy back there... maybe it needs a backscene. That's better! Oh and a name tag too. I've named it Bearley - the real village did indeed have a railway [https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/bearley.htm] , a junction between branchlines no less, and should be pronounced "beer-lee". But with a bit of modeller's licsence I've nicked the name, since if you pronounce it "bear-lee" then it's close to "barely", and it really is barely a yard! The end of the siding is protected by a Peco Code 75 bufferstop, bodged a little bit to fit on the Code 100 rails. The road area will probably have an entrance gate or yard lamp or something. The other building on the layout is a yard office building; this was built from a kit two years ago (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/154853-green-lane-wharf-oo-in-a-shoebox/?do=findComment&comment=3989725) and is based on a Midland weighbridge but. I think it complements the goods store nicely, the size and roof lines just look right to me. Finally here's the goods store again, with the door wide open this time. Given the internal walls are all detailed it's crying out for an interior lamp! So there we have it. Clearly I need to add ground cover, find a backscene image, and add other small details. I'm also planning to try some proper lighting, with an LED in each building and one or two exterior lamps too to give it a nice night-time feel in the evenings. What do you think so far?

The taller tree is definitely better, trees are taller than many think! I like the compostion of this scene, together with the engine shed it breaks up the left-hand edge nicely.

Cheers! The loco is a kit-bashed Dapol 04 Drewry Shunter, that I built back in 2019: Unfortunately the post in question suffers from missing pictures, but there's some more further down the page. Although I cut it about so it fits over the Bachmann 04 chassis, it's currently sat on the dummy plastic one from the kit since the layout is unpowered anyway.

Looking good, I love the concept and it's coming along nicely. As I read your thoughts about a higher level and the gantry, in my mind they instantly merged into putting a retaining wall along the rear and replacing the gantry with a footbridge that links to it? On top of the wall could be a "main line", a town road, or just parkland and trees. It'd play nicely into your available height, and a footbridge would distract the eye away from the "stage exit" without being overpowering. And give your show visitors a different angle to view the collection from!

Thanks @Kevin Johnson and @Jerry1975, I appreciate it! I've just gone back through and restored the lost photos from this thread; since there's only a page and a half, and I'd stored and labelled all of my photos, it wasn't too bad. I'm not so keen to do my Alexandra Wharf thread though 😄 I still need to put up some interior photos and a proper roof, but I don't see it happening any time soon - or that fiddle stick and shuttle unit. I'm too easily distracted by new projects...

Look what's finally turned up at Eastnate Dairy! It's been a year since it "opened" and a tanker has only just turned up - must be some very slow production! This came about from an exploratory trip to my nearest model shop, where the second-hand shelf featured six weathered and boxed milk tanks at £12 a piece. Being a skint student I only picked up the one, but I may well go back for a second at some point if they're still there! Having a proper tanker on-scene certainly helps reinforce the theme of the layout, even if it's from the wrong brand of dairy! Now I need to replace the Vanwide with a refrigerated van of some sort, and find a road vehicle.

That's looking absolutely fantastic - the night-time shots look especially realistic! Is the "wet ground" effect intentional? Either way I love it!

Look who's back! I haven't touched this thread, or pretty much RMWeb at all, for over 2 months now... it's almost like I've taken on a major scouting role or something that uses up every spare second I have! And I still have a degree to do as well... And yet, amongst all that, I've managed to spend the last two evenings playing railways. Specifically, tidying up the last gaping hole on the layout - the quayside. Firstly, as a reminder since I haven't managed to restore the missing photos to this thread yet, here's how the layout has looked for the past few months: Not bad, but the front was decideldy unfinished and scruffy. The first step was to add brickwork to the wall; I wanted some dark brown brick, but only had orangish of the grain silo or the pale-pink of the warehouses. I chose orange. Once I'd applied that, I set about neatening up the scruffy cardboard frontage with a layer of white card. I don't imagine it'll last very long and ideally it'd be a darker colour to not blend with the concrete surfacing, but it does the trick. Much better already! I still had to leave gaps for the point rods and it's not the smotthest of covers, but better than nowt. Then this evening I set about the shiny new brickwork with some watery acrylic black. I was surprised how well this worked, it was very produced exactly what I was after. The point rods and uncoupling threads are now blended into the wall as various pipes. It doesn't necessarily make sense to have pipes protruding into a dock, but maybe it's not a very well-used dock anymore! Still need to do something about that "water" surface though... Whilst I had the paints and glues out I took the opportunity to tidy up a few other corners of the layout. Firstly, the warehouse gained a hoist: The thread is passed over a rod under the canopy and through a hole in the top doors; inside, a nut acts as a counterbalance to the pallet load so it can be positioned as high or low as I fancy. One day I might install a mechanism that lets it continously rise and fall, just for fun... Meanwhile, how this chap got the forklift in here I'm not really sure, he's going to have a job getting it out again! And as usual, I can't post without some additional posed photos, could I? And finally... This is what a normal student's desk looks like, right? As well as Alexandra Wharf there's some bits floating around in front of the monitor, and the corner of Eastnate Dairy is just about visible on the shelf above it, so it's probably at least 75% railway. Oh and those loose bits might assemble themselves into an addtional diorama soon, so watch this space!

The lighting on this layout looks fantastic! They really give the scene a surprising amount of depth. I like the card system too, it gives a little more purpose to the shunting!

That warehouse does fit snugly doesn't it! To give it some more height, how about putting it on a slight embankment - if the road/yard was elevated at the backscene, it's plausible the warehouse could stay on a level pedestal as the road/yard drops down to baseboard level in front of it. As for the signal box, of course you can always mock it up first, but if a full 'box is too big/tall then maybe just a signal gantry? It'd still help to break up the hole-in-the-sky.

Sounds like a solid start! I'll be interested to see where this goes (and how much it extends by ). By the sound of it your layout isn't much deeper than a standard Really Useful Box layout, although nearly twice as long. And I totally haven't been planning another one recently...

Fantastic work! The trackwork and ground cover definitely looks better than what I usually manage to pull off, and I really enjoy the lane and fence in the foreground - the view of the '37 over the roofs of the cars looks perfectly proportioned. Maybe it just needs a figure leaning on the fence to add a hint of life to the scene?

Brilliant! Adding history to the layout is yet another dimension to be explored. I just don't have that sort of creativity, so I'll enjoy reading yours instead! I briefly volunteered on a railway that definitely fits that description... ...and that one too - I was even in said Sunday ballast-poking gang whilst I was there! Did we do anything of significant benefit? No, not really, but it was what fitted around my schedule

Cheers @Ian Holmes! Thank you! I don't think it's particuarly novel, but it's very easy to blend in with all the inset track. I explained it back on Page 2, it's just a couple of bits of paperclip and some thread: Just above that post is one explaining the more complex affair for the sector-plate uncoupler; unfortunately that one, the important one designed to help with uncoupling in an awkward location, is broken at present! I need to flip the layout over to sort that one out. Never ending, is it...

Thanks for your thoughts, all. I took down the layout again and had another good look to see if any of the card surfacing had risen up. However it mostly seems in good shape; when I installed it I butted it up to the web of the rail rather than the head, so it's slightly restrained by the lip of the head above it. Tricky to get a photo of this but I think you can see what I mean. Nevertheless I went over it all again with the track rubber and isopropyl alcohol, applying liberal amounts of the latter to point blades and hinges to remove any wayward paint. I also pulled up a small section of the card to check on the connection from the controller to the track, but both it and all other solder joints seem remarkably sound. But after all that, wouldn't you know it, something seems to have changed... still not ideal, but reasonable enough for me to try some filming... This doesn't involve any fancy kit - just balancing my phone in weird places to get the shots. I use my phone since it's a Google Pixel and thus has the best camera of all my devices, including my actual camera! Keeping it upright is fun, as is repeating the same action over and over until the model performs faultlessly (or close enough I can conceal it in the edit)... Then it's on to editing; I had to install a new piece of software for this, since my old one isn't available any more. After a little poking about on the web I chose OpenShot; again nothing fancy, but I needed something a little more powerful than Window's built-in editor since I like to cut out all the hand-of-god poking that's somewhat inevitable. I found the software fairly easy to use; the two main issues I had was it occasionally glitched with clips still playing after I'd removed them from the timeline, and as the video got longer it tended to crash more frequently. But somehow it worked, and much to @Andrew D's delight I can finally share a video; I hope you all enjoy! Although I did leave in the point changing and manual uncoupling, I cropped out all the hand-of-god pokes that were necessary. All in all there are about a dozen cuts in there; some more cleverly hidden than others! Finally, I'll leave you with some more after-dark shots - I really do like these, maybe I'll have to try some dusk filming next time...