TechnicArrow

Thank you! I'm glad I kept the tall buildings from the diorama, they make the layout seem much larger than it really is. And they really dominate the trains - especially this next one... There's not been much modelling over the past week, since it's been too nice outside. However, there is a new arrival in my fleet. I actually bought the loco in question about three weeks ago, but hid it from myself until today - results day! So, upon waking up this morning and after I'd learnt that after 4 years of work I've graduated Swansea with a 1st Class Honours (woop!), I opened my little present to myself: Clearly, 'tis a Hattons Andrew Barclay, as I'm sure most of you will recognise by this point. However, it's special to me, since this is the first brand-new loco I've bought for myself - up until this point I've always bought second-hand. I decided I should probably buy a proper little industrial steam shunter for my plethora of layouts, and although Hornby's Pecketts are nice I wanted something in BR black and I really like the shape of these squared-off saddletanks, so I bought one! And this diminutive little engine really is dwarfed by everything - it even makes the 04 look big! Already it looks at home posing on this layout. My plan is that it won't retain it's current identity as 705 for very long - with some custom nameplates (already on order from Light Railway Stores) it will become 1140, an engine that ran on the docks railways around Swansea, which this layout is somewhat inspired by. There's a few photos of it online, the one I see most is near the bottom of the page: http://www.swanseadocks.co.uk/docksnewsite/railwayslowlevel.html. Clearly it's not quite the same variant of loco, but it's close enough for my purposes. And I should probably get a proper crew for it as well, to add to populate the exquisitely detailed cab. She doesn't really run very well yet, fresh out the box - but I'm moving back home over the weekend, back to my home layout where I can run her in properly. Maybe I should make a video - or maybe I should actually finish this layout first...

These lineups all look fantastic - this compact layout is the perfect setting for your extensive fleet. I still think the idea of making it look like a main running line from certain angles is absolute genius, have you taken any more photos in that style?

Thanks @Multigauge and @SteveyDee68. After your comments I decided to sleep on it a bit, to see if the colour grew on me. It did to an extent, so I had a go at weathering it. Mostly I attacked the structure with heavily watered-down acrylics - mostly black, dark grey and reddish-brown. This mixture was made in very small amounts and therefore changed as I went along, to keep things varied. I also regularly added a small amount of ash; this both added a varied grey colour as well as the texture. The paint was applied with a small brush to the corners, under the overlaps of the cladding, and a few large patches above each track. In some places the water has caused the printer ink to run a little bit, but I think the overall effect is pretty good - much less like plain. or as I later decided it looked like, mint ice-cream. And I still haven't done the roof cladding yet! In the front siding area, I've built a slightly-decorative wall with a recessed panel and end pillars, and mounted the pair of gates. These can be posed at any angle; I simply glued the gates to a long pin each, which pivots in a hole in the ground as well as a tiny tab fixing them to the adjacent wall near the top to keep them upright. Finally, whilst I had the paints out, I also scored and weathered joint lines in the concrete hardstanding. I tried not to go too overboard since I like the fairly smooth look. It seems I'm getting better at this weathering malarky, maybe I should have a little go on the 04 sooner or later. Anyway, I think this little layout is coming together quite nicely! It's mostly just that pesky warehouse building and the dock to sort out now...

Things are coming on nicely here! I think the hut looks best the first way; there's more detail and interest visible to the viewer, and more space for an access path to the door. Or of course you could go sideways!

Interesting idea. I still think the presence of a building right between the tracks would look off, but I might consider it. The last two evenings, I've been paying attention to the loading tower and conveyor. I started by building a proper structure to replace the mock-ups. No prizes for guessing what I built it from! (Side-note: the small office has also finally got it's roof tiles: I printed them ages ago, but only just got around to cutting them into strips and gluing them on.) The loading tower is mostly based on the structure(s) at Ipswich, as illustrated in photos in the first two pages of @SteveyDee68's Blackford Wharf thread. Most notable is the tall, thin, protruding loading aparatus from the front of the structure; I've left an opening in the front of this building to build one, currently represented by the outer casing of a long-dead biro. As usual, the whole building splits to allow it to fit in the box; in this case the joint is quite obvious, but it also lines up with the overhang in the building. The conveyor roof will also be a removable section, yet to be built at this point. And then it came to the cladding. I had long ago decided to use the Scalescenes "painted corrugated iron" texture; however, I wasn't sure what colour to use. I decided to try to mimic the faded-green look of the Ipswich structure, in a vague attempt to break up the brown-and-grey nature of the layout so far. I used MS Word's colour correction tool to add the tint, then printed it - but rather than using plain A4, I decided to try a sheet of A4-sized sticker/label paper, the kind that peels off to reveal an adhesive backing, that my housemate had purchased to make postage labels. This meant applying the cladding the building was a simple case of scoring the printed surface, then peeling it off and applying it to the structure - much quicker, not to mention less messy and smelly, than smearing Pritt stick over everything. To get some level of texture I applied the cladding in strips, so each layer of iron slightly overlaps the one below. Finally, here's the building with the roofs added (although not yet clad) and back on the layout. But no I need some opinions. I'm very happy with the structure, the shape, and the sticky labels worked perfectly and I'll probably stick (geddit?) to using them in future, certainly for instances where lots of small applications are necessary. What I'm not so certain on is the colour. I was trying to imitate the faded green look, as displayed in photos in this post: What do you think of my attempt, and ? My housemate said it was grey, but then he's green-yellow colourblind so probably not a good person to ask! Personally I can't decide if it's too pale overall, or just plain since I haven't weathered it yet. Or maybe it's just because I decided it was too close to "surgical green", and now I'm never going to un-see that. Tricky one.

Just because I've been working on my dairy-in-an-ice-cream-tub, doesn't mean I've been neglecting this wharf layout... OK, I have, but not entirely. Despite the over-the-track warehouse being a key part of a quay layout, with the rest of the layout at the right-hand end being much more built-up than the open left-hand end it didn't feel very "balanced". Also I like being able to see my trains as much as possible, which is kind of difficult when they're in/behind/under buildings. So I took it off. But now I need to obscure the sector plate again. What I've decided to go for is a simple (although somewhat decorative) wall taken as far into the "v" of the two lines as possible; the loading tower at the front has then been nudged right a bit to further conceal the unrealistically tight nature of the affair. The loading conveyor will be retained as far left as possible on the tower however; a further bridge, the trusty girder pipe/footbridge thingymabob from Arrow Paints and Alexandra Wharf V1, spans from the older warehouse to the loading tower too. Finally, another pair of gates is positioned over the rails between the loading tower and the wall; these indicate the front siding to be a different, private section of the dock, which makes the wall more believable and provides some interesting low-level views. Something I haven't quite decided on is the height of this dividing wall; too high and it's unrealistic as a simple property dividing line, but too short and you can see onto the sector plate too easily. It'll have to be somewhere in the middle. But this view between the gates into the main yard is pretty good, although difficult to get a camera to focus on. I don't think the gates will "work", but I'll certainly have a go at making proper hinges for them so they can be posed in the shut position if I want to. As usual, that's all I've got for now. I should start making the older warehouses soon, but I need to find some good brick paper first. I'd hoped the Scale Model Scenery stuff I bought would be a good colour, but it's too similar to the Superquick brick I've used on the grain silo - I'd prefer a browner brick, just for a bit of variance and to indicate age.

Whatever you say, you can't deny that your trackwork and ballasting is very neat, and with good colouring on the rails too! Your Metcalfe kit-bash looks good too - the slight modifications make it more unique. If it's not too fixed yet, can I suggest you swap the "front" and "back" sections around, so the platform is adjacent to the track again? I feel it's worth noting that the building doesn't need to be flush against the backscene - setting it at a slight angle, with some plain card for the small amount of roof that'll be needed, can give a surprising amount of depth to the scene. But overall your work so far is looking fantastic, I'm looking forward to your progress!

Thank you! I'm glad you asked, you reminded me I haven't posted in a little while... At some point earlier this week, I finally got around to the ground cover. I started by painting the (visible) sides of the rails and the bufferstop a browny-rust colour, and then added liberal mounts of dilute PVA and grey ash around the sleepers. The hardstanding is still the scalescenes printed surface texture, on a few layers of card to build up the thickness a little. Whilst I was at the layout I also modified the bridge slightly; I moved the brick parapet forward of the girder rather than behind it, and sloped the front face back a little so the lid can still fit on the tub properly. Finally, a few photos - this time with the trusty 04, which I don't think has made an appearance yet. I think one of the reasons I really enjoy this loco is the splash of green, yellow and red it brings to an otherwise very brown/grey scene; although this particular layout isn't too bad with the prominent blue doors and signage. I really enjoy this view across both tracks, although it's only possible when there isn't a van there. I might build a half-a-wagon, to provide the soft view-block under the bridge but also retain some open track. That's all for now. There's not much left to do really; I need to add a left-hand building of some sort, and a roof to the dairy which will be incredibly complex to fit with the curve of the tub. And then at some point I've got to add a fiddle-stick and auto-run system, but I expect that'll be a project Dad can help with when I'm at home over summer.

Cheers @Wrenn, @The Bandit and @Nathaniel, as well as everyone else who "reacts" to my posts - I'm glad you enjoy watching my little side-project develop as much as I'm enjoying building it! Over the past two days a fair few advancements have been made. The first was the addition of windows to the dairy building. Given the success of the Alexandra Wharf grain silo, I've stuck to my method of cutting window apertures from a piece paper, adding thin strips for the glazing bars and finally covering with clear plastic: These were then fitted to the building. Two of them had extractor-fan grilles added to them; I then carried on adding detail to the platform, as usual raiding my box of scrap kit sprues for suitable pipes. Then it was time to get the paints out; whilst I was painting the pipework I used various shades and strengths of grey to transform the bare card faces to a slightly more concrete-y look. Since It's never really been shown on it's own before, here's a vanity shot of the more-or-less completed building: I'm pretty damn happy with this one - given it's not based on any real-life structure, I'm really pleased with the proportions. Here it is again, with a little more life added to the scene: What's that in the background, you (probably don't) ask? Well, the bridge has finally graduated from mock-up to scenic structure. No stand-alone shot of this one I'm afraid; one, it's pretty integral to the scene now, and two - if I did you'd realise just how wonky it really is! Seriously, viewed face-on there's not a square angle on the thing, which can probably be attributed to the baseboard. Ah well, you never *can* see it face-on when it's in the box, so no matter; if we pull back out to take in the whole scene, most of the discrepancies fade away. The only thing is I've just spotted the parapet wall should be on top of the girder, not behind it - shouldn't be too tricky to fix though. Overall it's looking pretty tidy! The to-do list is getting steadily shorter - it's now just rusting the rails, adding ground cover, and finding something to fill the left-hand wall. Oh, and someday I'm going to have to make this run...

Thanks! I agree we ought to cool off some of the puns, but a sprinkling here and there can't go amiss.. Anyway - yesterday I received a package containing, amongst other things, a couple of lengths of track. I wasted no time in cutting a few cm off the end of one double-straight so it fitted within the box. For the dummy siding I realised I could just but up my collection of offcuts, mainly from Alexandra Wharf V2 - no fishplates required even, since it's never going to be a running track. So I line deveything up, PVA'ed it all, and left it under some books to set - and when I came back, I found everything nicely stuck to the board, but not necessarily where I'd left it... Oops! I was intending to go for a slightly run-down look on the dummy siding, but I think this was a bit too much! Luckily the glue was just wet enough to allow me to rotate it back to where it was meant to be. Other developments include the addition of brick paper to the upper section of the dairy building walls, and a concertina-style door added to each opening. The canopy has also been slightly raised by changing from a sloped top to a flat one, and had a roofing texture added. Elsewhere I have started work on the overbridge by building the main girder from print-covered card; finally, the yard area now sports a concrete hard-standing. Almost to prove what can be done, nearly everything mentioned above features kit-bashed components from the Scalescenes Free Low-Relief Factory - the canopy roof and the concrete hardstanding are simply used as intended, and the doors are the metal sliding ones but folded up a few times. The trickier one is the bridge girder - I found a suitable dark metallic texture within the kit, printed it, and used it to clad some card strips before gluing them to a larger flat piece to form the girder. Finally, the other item in yesterday's parcel was a pack of Peco milk churns - essential really, for this layout. There's plenty of them too - this is only half of them on the platform so far! Really showing off the bridge girder in these two photos. Currently it's just blue-tacked to the front of the mock-up, but it gives an idea of what's to come. At least I remembered to extend it beyond the bridge opening this time, so it actually sits on the abutments rather than floating! As usual, that's all for now, but there's plenty more to cone - sorry, come... will we ever learn?

It sounds like you've got a good plan formed now - I think I'm going to enjoy watching this one come together!

Cheers all, I'm loving the scoop of ice-cream puns - keep them cone-ing, because mine are getting flakey! Maybe we can get to 99 - then again, we might feel a bit sor-bet by then... Currently, it's wireless (and even trackless!) It will be DC, but on an automatic shuttle - whether that's a proprietary unit, an Arduino Micro and H-bridge, or some other fancy electronics courtesy of my dad, is yet to be seen. Tonight's progress was all digital, so nothing really to serve up. But I now have an A4 page choc-chip-full of things to print for this layout, so I should be able to start whipping up a few more things soon! I would say I'm sorry for the puns, but I don't think I am. Blame @marc smith, he started it...

Well I wasn't going to do any more on this diorama for a while, but with such a rapturous response to the first post I can hardly leave it can I! @ianb3174 - interesting! I considered doing an ice-cream factory, but since I'm not sure if any rail-served examples existed I decided to play it safe and depict a generic dairy instead. @Warwick Sidings Thanks you. I came across the 48DS livery as I was doing some research yesterday. Unfortunately I don't think I can justify spending money on a brand new loco just for this tiny layout, which is a shame because it would be absolutely perfect! Also thanks to @The Bandit and @Wrenn for your comments; and to all 22 of you who reacted to the first post! So what did I manage to get up to this evening? I decided the best place to start work would be the main dairy building. I replaced the mock-up with a sturdier card shell; up to 3 layers thick in some places, which also helps to give the window and door openings some depth. The building and platform were then clad in brick paper, with concrete windowsills added using spares printed for the Alexandra Wharf V2 grain silo. I've left the northlight sections unclad for now since I'm considering presenting them as corrugated iron rather than brick. Side-note: it's interesting how when the surrounding room is darker, the layout's lighting looks cooler in photos than when taken in a sunlit room! In real life it's closer to the warm colour. At the left-hand end I've brought in an old section of wall from the spares box, as an experiment. Clearly the current door isn't large enough for a wagon to theoretically pass through, but it makes things look a little more complete. I'm not sure the canopy is my finest work; clearly it needs painting and decorating, as does the sides of the northlight section of the wall, but evidently I wasn't thinking when I measured up for it since it sits behind and level with the train roofs rather than above and overhanging them. Maybe I'll change it, maybe I won't. So in summary, decent progress but half of what you see above could still change! Nevertheless I'm very much encouraged by the fact that just about everyone who's seen it, both in pictures and in real life, seems to enjoy it - so I'll definitely be working on it more this week. Thanks for reading!

Yes I know I haven't finished Alexandra Wharf V2 yet, but this was simply too good an opportunity to miss... Thanks to a housemate working at a shop in a local park, for the past few months we've been munching our way through a shop-sized tub of ice-cream (it only just fitted in our freezer!). But as soon as it was finished, I saw the empty box and knew I had to put a railway in it - and what better subject for a railway-in-an-icecream-box than a dairy... But first I needed to make the box into a usable baseboard. I decided the box should remain a key display feature, rather than simply building a layout that could lift out. Therefore the box has been turned onto it's side, and I started building a baseboard inside it: It's a very unusual shape to have to fill with all of the curves! Furthermore, since the box has a thick lip around the outside, when it's on it's side the "bottom" slopes backwards. The resulting baseboard, made of my now-traditional cardboard sandwiches, is sufficiently rigid and sits tidily and comfortably inside. Next it was onto the railway itself. It should just about be possible to fit a standard 335mm length of track inside so my mind got to work. I was initially hoping to create a fully self-contained scene, but putting a scenic break in the middle wouldn't leave enough space for a loco & wagon to be completely on or completely off the scene. Instead it will act as either a static diorama, or with an add-on headshunt to one side can be operated by an automatic shuttle unit. With the general idea defined, it was time to compose the dairy scene itself. A few mock-ups later, and we have this: A fairly simple overall plan: a brick northlight building with loading platform and canopy forms the bulk of the model, with a girder bridge scenic break to one end. I've placed an additional dummy siding in front of the operational track to act as a "soft" scenic break, and hint at more of a yard off-scene - a trick borrowed from one of my first layouts, Green Lane Wagon Works. To break the parallel-baseboard effect both tracks are slightly angled forwards from the entrance on the right. Finally, the lighting is supplied by one of the Ikea "Ledberg" strips I used on Arrow Paints. They're robust and exactly the right size for this layout; it's suspended from the top of the box by some card braces, which the upper fascia also attaches to. That's all for now, but not bad for a day's work. I'm not sure how fast progress will be on this; I do feel somewhat guilty about switching away from Alexandra Wharf V2 so quickly, and I'll need to buy the few sections of track before I can progress much further. But the idea is well and truly planted now!

Thanks all! I can't deny I've been thinking about this. This is my first micro-layout where exhibitions are feasible - being a fairly rigid layout with it's own dedicated storage/transport box means it should be possible for me to take this anywhere, even potentially by public transport. I would say I'm not sure whether the layout would be interesting enough to operate for an entire weekend, but then I've exhibited my cliff railway before - and since that was arduino-powered, all I needed to do was press a button occasionally! I think I'd want to test it's reliability first; probably need to reinforce my uncouplers, and maybe retro-fit microswitches to the electrofrog points, although that could be tricky now they're in-situ. But the layout does indeed sit neatly on top of the empty box, and so far packing away/setting up seems fairly quick and robust (it's almost like I planned it!), so doing an exhibition isn't out of the question...

It certainly looks rigid enough, although photos don't always tell the whole story! Regarding the front lip - I don't think that's a bad thing at all. It'll help to keep your ground cover in place when you're adding it, and it will protect the front edge from the inevitable bumps and bruises that tend to take little bits of ballast with them. Or if you're doing insetting or tarmac/concrete at the front - you can just go straight over the lip, no trouble. And as for shellac, I'd expect it depends on how wet you intend to get the layout during gluing. I've managed to get away with never using it, but I tend to keep things fairly dry. Anyway, I'm still watching this with interest, and look forwards to seeing where you go next!

Over the past few evenings there's been some slow-but-steady progress on the grain silo building. Not that you can tell at first glance! The most obvious addition is the platform and canopy I've been hammering on about for ages now. In the end I went with a simple brick platform rather than a skeletal conrete one - it was simpler, and I wanted a little more brickwork at low level to differentiate the yard floor from the silo wall. The canopy is "concrete" however, simply a couple of sheets of card with some supports underneath. The canopy has ended up *very* close to the van roofs - especially since the 4 supports don't really do much, most of the height setting is achieved by being fixed between walls at both ends. Once the canopy was in place I could finally split the main silo wall - I needed the canopy in place first so I could place the split line behind it to conceal it. The upper structure isn't as solid as the two towers, since it it flatter and thus has less front-back support. I should probably devise a system to secure it to the two towers, given how stable they seem to be. Finally, the least obvious thing that's changed is that all of the lower structures - the lower tower sections, the platform and the loading shed - are now fixed to the baseboard. This makes everything significantly more stable - no more building collapses every time I open my drawers! And even better, when the upper sections are removed, it all fits in the box as intended! And when the extra bits are packed flat, the lid still fits on - phew! to my surprise I didn't even need to take the rolling stock out for this photo, although I expect I will when I have a few more building elements to jigsaw into place. There's a few final polishes to add - lead flashing and bargeboards for the loading shed, downpipes on the towers, and painting some of the bare paper and card into more concrete-y colours. But the silo is finally getting there!

Obvious to you, but that idea had completely slipped my thoughts! That's perfect, I'll definitely look into that one.

As usual, it's been another week since I've actually posted anything here, so I should probably give an update! Thanks for sharing this, I hadn't seen it and it's a fantastic idea! I think I've used smaller dowels though, and fixing the magnets to them doesn't look easy... but it's definitely something I'll look into in the future, it's too good an idea to pass on. For now I've stuck to my stubby dowels, but with just enough room around them to grip the notch on the end. I've also added the final two rods - the most inaccesable-to-fingers ones, rearmost point and the sector plate. Since these are behind the dock cut-out, I first tried placing the rods just beneath the water level. But the distance from the rod to the tiebar was too big; the rod moved, but the wire just pivoted and the tiebar stayed still! Instead I've just poked them through the dock wall! This is them in the "out" position; when they're pushed back they're not too obvious. I'll still need to disguise these properly at some point. But they make operating the layout actually possible again: I can flip the rear point, and the friction on the rod means the sector plate stays where I put it! Whilst we're on the subject of points, I added some chequerplate "covers" either side of the inset point. Originally "bridges" from the Scalescenes free inspection pit, these do actually cover up the slot for the tiebar pins, as well as looking like a recessed point lever cover. They were inset into the concrete by just peeling away a few layers of card and gluing them down, so they're flat-but-not-quite-flush. Finally, I've added fixed the first "structure" to the board - a low wall and pair of gates at the left-hand end. The gates came from Scale Model Scenery, since they're much finer and sturdier than anything I could scratchbuild. They're posed slightly open, and provide a good edge to the scene whilst still implying it's part of a much bigger complex. That's all for now, just a few simple tasks I've been ticking off in the evenings since I've started working (from home) on my summer placement now. Next week I should probably add the finishing touches to the grain silo, before moving on to the warehouse building.

That sounds like an interesting plan - although I wonder if wet-gluing printed paper will make the ink run. I'll have to do some more experiments... Also thanks @ThomasG and @Wrenn for your compliments, and to everyone who reacts to my ramblings. This week, being my "week off" between exams and starting a summer placement, was going to be filled with modelling - but then the weather was just too good... doesn't mean I haven't managed some though. PART 1 - SILO PROGRESS The main thing the tower buildings were missing were the windows. Although I had printed these out much as I used for the original Alexandra Wharf, since the success of the thin-paper-strip ones on the small office I decided I had to make better than just prints. To this end I cut out square holes from a sheet of paper, glued several very thin strips of paper over them, and then added clear plastic on top of that. A little bit messy here, but from the other side they looked quite good if a little inconsistent: They were then cut into individual windows, and glued carefully behind each opening. Together with the windowsills they make the building much more complete, although it still needs lintels above the openings and some drainpipes. I'm very happy with how the split lines up with a windowsill on the right-hand tower: when the top section is removed, it simply leaves the sill behind. Next I fiddled with the colour settings on the additional section of concrete wall to get it more-grey-less-yellow than the first attempt, and re-printed it (along with many other useful bits). This additional section was fixed to the existing half using the drainpipe to hide the joint, and with a card "plate" and two large diagonal braces to keep the whole thing rigid. The braces are my favourite strong material, card sandwiches: corrugated card for thickness, with cereal box card for rigidity. I will come back and add more braces when I know exactly how and where this tall section of wall is going to split for transport; somewhere around the dotted line, but I'm not sure yet. PART 2: THE OVERALL LAYOUT Once all the above was sorted, the layout was reconstructed, together with some updated mock-ups for the right-hand warehouse (more on that in a bit). Things are falling over less and less, I'm finding! The right-hand warehouses are now based on various remaining buildings around Swansea, although with more floors and the roof pitch rotated 90 degrees for visual interest. They mostly comprise of various depths of brick, stepped back in "panels" around the windows between the "columns". The windows themselves will be laser-cut offerings from Scale Model Scenery - although my paper-strip windows work well, I didn't fancy doing the many, many, larger-apertued & smaller-paned windows needed here! But more on these buildings will be posted later, when I receive the materials I need for it. PART 3: POINT RODS This afternoon, I took everything off again to sort out the remaining task under the baseboard: the point control. Initially intending to use stiff wire, instead I found some long wooden sticks (originally intended for holding marshmallows over a fire), and together with a bit of unbent paperclip to link through the baseboard to the tiebars this seems to work well. Or would do... when it came to instalation, I discovered that not one but two of the point tiebars are directly over the supports within the baseboard. Furthermore, one of them was actually above a support cluster, with no less than 5 supports converging on exactly the spot I needed to get to... Messy job then! You can just about spot the tip of the wire from the tiebar, in the middle of the photo where the 5 supports used to meet. (you can also see the yellow plunger, hangar and thread of one of the uncoupler mechanisms on the left.) But once that was sorted, I have remote point control! The levers at the front of the layout are currently just the dowels with a notch cut in them; they need to sit flush with the front of the layout in at least one position, so it all fits in the transport box. I might have to find a better solution though, because these aren't always the easiest to use. But they still snap the points over well, so I'm going in the right direction. And that's where it for now. Still at the top of my to-do list is the remaining point rod and a similar one for the sector plate, and adding the final touches to the silo. But all is coming on well!

Oh absolutely, I rarely print a whole kit - I can't waste ink, I'm a student! And it's not even my printer... Luckily, it's on a pre-paid pages-per-month scheme so ink isn't actually a direct cost, but making sure each page is as full as possible is a priority. I'll probably start setting up another page with the other half of the silo as the main element, and anything else I might need around the edges. It's definitely a tricky one to get across on camera, but I think the difference is notable. But I agree that working with practically unlimited resources is always advantagous! Today, as an aside from the large buildings, I worked on the little office building. First, I searched for real-life inspiration; aerial photos show there was a small hut building in the vicinity of the Weaver's Building at Swansea, but I haven't found any photos where it can be seen properly. Therefore I went for a small brick office with square-ish windows on both sides. The model features a chimney in one corner with a plastic-tube chimneypot, and flashing from the dismantled grain silo lean-to. One side of the building features guttering and a drainpipe from sections of sprue - it's only on one side because I ran out of suitable half-round sprues! Even though it won't be seen much on this layout, I modelled all four sides since I'll probably want to re-use it elsewhere someday. The window arches are brick capping with about 2/3rds of each mortar course cut away to allow it to be curved easily; the windows themselves are very thin strips of paper with a piece of clear plastic packaging glued behind. The one thing the model lacks is roof tiles; I should probably add them to the list of things to print. And in it's place on the layout. I'm not sure if the "deliveries" sign makes much sense, but the "limited clearance" is definitely needed! As can be seen the gutter discharges straight to the dock. Having a building so close to the quayside is of course completely impractical, but I love it (for now)! Finally, an unusual view: from the sector plate, just to see what it looks like from behind. My conclusion is "pretty good". Who knew I could make such a long post about such a small building! I should get back to the grain silo I suppose, it's going to take a while if I'm to consistently match the bar I've just set myself...

Cheers for all the reactions, everybody. Now that I'm free from exams (forever, from this uni at least!), the buildings have been progressing fairly steadily. First I got the second tower up to the level of the first: adding the split and alignment pegs, then reinforcing the structure before cladding it in brick paper. I also added the no-relief section to the right that the conveyor emerges from. Just as an aside, this is my arrangement for maintaining alignment: the long tabs are fixed to the upper section of the building, and fit snugly into pockets in the lower half. The tabs are pretty much as long as I can make them. This is the left-hand building, hence there's no brickpaper on most of the lower half; this is going to be inside the lean-to, so will be covered in whitewashed brick instead. Next I arranged and printed a sheet of the extra components I needed: the whitewashed brick, windows and signage, and the extra concrete silo wall. I attached the latter to some card and set it up with the existing section: The drainpipe still does it's job of hiding the seam. Unfortunately, the original wall wasn't printed by me, it was the free kit included in Hornby Magazine. I'm not quite sure how they printed it but I always thought the brickwork was a bit pink and washed out; clearly something's going on, because the colour difference between that and what my printer produced is quite stark! The wall includes a small section of brickwork at the base; my printer produced a colour very similar to the superquick brick paper, but the original to the left is definitely different. I'm in two minds whether to print off an entirely new section to replace the original, or maybe try some colour corrections to match the extra section to the original - I think I prefer the older concrete colour, despite the weirdness with the brickwork. Or I could just leave it as it is - what do you think?

That's a very interesting idea, definitely something to look into when I return to the quayside area. And thanks @Ian Holmes and @Andrew D, I'm glad you enjoy it! Over the past few evenings I've been making small bits of progress on the layout; firstly the ballast. Using the ash I collected previously, I distributed it over diluted pva brushed between the sleepers; once it had all dried I tidied it up with a flatblade screwdriver, where it had inevitably stuck itself onto the sleepers. Looks pretty good though! At some point I'll paint the area under the sector plate roughly the same colour as this ballast so the joint isn't so obvious. I did discover by accident that water with a tiny amount of pva and ash in it works quite well for weathering the card into concrete; I might have to experiment further on the old diorama board before I commit to anything on this layout. Secondly, I've finally made a start on the actual buildings this layout will be using! First I separated the corrugated-iron loading shelter from the Scalescenes grain silo; I will most likely re-use it, but it needed to be shortened - the maximum height of fixed buildings is 85mm, so anything above that needs to be removable. Luckily the opening on the original loading shelter is quite large anyway, so cutting 12mm off the bottom doesn't affect too much. I'll just need to rebuild the roof at a slightly shallower angle and it'll be fine. Continuing from here I built the two brick tower elements of the silo. The left-hand one has progressed further; there's a split at the necessary height, just behind the roof of the lean-to. The upper half has some deep card tabs that fit into pockets on the inside of the lower section. It's also had it's coating of superquick brickpaper applied. It's amusing how now I've taken the mock-ups off it feels like I've got less of a layout, but when it grows back it will be much more complete than it was before! I've now got a bit of a plan in my head. I will be re-using the main concrete section from the silo, although I will print off a few extra components to extend it by 50% or so. At some point it will have a prefab-concrete style platform and canopy added, the latter to hide the necessary horizontal seam. An additional flat-relief brick element will go to the right of the current right-hand tower as somewhere for the conveyor to connect to; the conveyor itself will be clad in more Scalescenes corrugated iron. I spent a bit of time earlier experimenting with ways to emboss the corrugated iron to give it a little more relief than just flat paper; if anyone has any tips in this regard, I'm all ears!

Next milestone achieved: all the inset track is complete! As you can see, nearly all the track has been inset; everything was done by building up various thicknesses of corrugated and cereal box card, with the final layer of cereal box card to keep everything fairly consistent. Only the two central sets of points and the sector plate have been spared. With the buildings back in place, things are looking good (if a bit grey)! As can also be seen in the overall shots, each uncoupler now has a little teabag-shaped label at the front to operate them by; I've been fettling them to get each to work smoothly and fall down reliably. I've also cut out and lined an area for the edge of the dock; it might grow further, since having the loading tower at one end of the dock doesn't really make much sense. It's just a bigger dock will make it more awkward to run the point control rods. You may also notice the small office/hut has made a return - with the dock cut-out at the front, the truck can't really park there anymore. Well, it can, but the driver would get quite wet when he gets out! Finally, I spent some time operating the layout and took far too many pictures, so enjoy! The 04 positions an open wagon on the front siding. Shunting the rear siding. The front siding uncoupler ramp placement (restricted by the left-most Y point) means the rake of wagons is always parked a little close, but it's not too bad. More wagon movements. Running around a 5-plank open. I'm really proud of how well the insetting around the Y-point turned out, although until I set up the control rods it's a pain to switch! Extracting wagons from under the warehouse. I think the office and workman give a sense of scale to the trains themselves; it's easy to forget how big they are in real life! A view from the other end of the gallery Finally the 04 squeezing between wagons as it runs around again. I'm definitely happy how things are shaping up - the concrete looks good, and it's great to see the 04 trundling about everywhere - movement was what the original Alexandra Wharf was lacking. The next two evenings will probably be spent with more under-the-board points and uncoupler fettling, and eventually some ash ballasting - and then onto the structures!

Your gorse experiments have definitely paid off - it looks perfect, especially in that 3rd shot with the slightly rickety boundary fence. Now I think there just needs to be a bit more of it The whole scene is really coming together, and you're capturing the open, windswept feel of the location really well - it makes a good break from the heavily industrial settings I seem to be modelling. Good work!