A Scenic Sprint (To The End)

Confession time... I have not really been taking many photos of progress of the expansion of my 'To The End' diorama. I've fallen out with my bridge camera and my phone camera doesn't always get the result I'm after. Therefore there is a jump from the last post to the next image, and then we'll find that this is really the last proper "work in progress" shot... 

By this time I had added two more layers to the basic groundwork, one a layer (in some places two) of Amazon packing paper used with dilute PVA in a sort of papier mache to add a consistent surface over the card and DAS clay, then a layer of my usual paint/PVA/tile grout mix, with Woodland Scenics fine turf sieved over whilst wet. In between these layers the track was ballasted and whilst looking for materials to match the original mixture, I actually found that very mixture, result!

The concrete area was extended from the small area on the micro-diorama. I had the original Green Scene tub with this material in, but opened it to find that it had dried out. Originally this paint had some sort of powder in it, with a liquid carrier, and the dried out lumps were still powdery... could I grind it back down to a powder in a pestle and mortar, and reactivate it? Adding the powder to Hobbycraft Matt Medium I soon had a paste that resembled the original product and I could use it on the new area to extend the scene. Despite the plan being to use static grass for the new grass work, I then opted to further blend old and new by adding some hanging basket liner in around the edges of the trackwork and concrete areas to help everything blend in. 

At this early stage I was experimenting with groupings of scenic items, in an attempt to add interest to the scene, and hopefully use up some items that have been awaiting their day for a while, such as these Ravenglass & Eskdale inspired fencing panels. These were actually glued in place during the static grass work and from that point on, things just grew organically, or so it seems...

I cannot possibly describe everything in detail, but to summarise, I have:

• added further leaf litter around the track to match that on the micro diorama,
• added static grass in a mixture of colours, aiming for variation but keeping it subtle,
• created bushes/hedges from teased rubberised horsehair, with static grass fibres added a la Gravett, then foliage, and avoiding foliage matts to get a better effect,
• reinstated the fence, with a new section running into the hedge that was originally created for Odsock Corner,
• added detail/texture to the grass using MiniNatur flowers, Martin Welberg weeds and some recently acquired products.

The tree is the half-relief one completed in 2022 when attempting the Avalon Brickworks style layout. I had to remove about 2cm from it's height so it will fit in the Really Useful Box, and re-create the flare/roots at the base (then hide them in the undergrowth!)

On the micro diorama the front corner was occupied by a wheelset and a crate with a lamp inside. For the expanded scene they are joined by a bucket, keg, pallet, paving slabs and a saddletank that was originally for a model of 'Badger' but has again been painted up for some time and waiting in the wings for use in a scene. It has just been explored by a rabbit, who is looking over towards a bush from Green Stuff World from a pack I bought in a wargames shop in Bridlington on holiday last year.

More soon...

Colin

 

To The End (Revisited)

 A couple of months ago I mocked-up of a concept to expand one of my micro-dioramas 'To the End'. There is some background to this scene in Diorama Developments - To The End back in 2021, but to summarise it started life in 2016 as a 140 x 70mm scene, later expanded to 220 x 70mm. With it's home in the display cabinet no longer available I have started work to develop a larger scene. 

My initial though had been to go up to the 15" x 6" (375 x 150mm) format of 'The Headshunt' and 'Beck Bridge', but it has actually ended up a little smaller in order that it can fit into a 9 litre 'Really Useful Box', with an available height of 210mm. 

The new base is largely recycled and offcut materials, very much in the style of my 'Up-cycle' projects of a few years ago. On the underside of the board the constructional style can be seen, the corner pieces came from a pre-cut set of parts cut for a diorama board some time ago, but had to be slimmed down to suit the new board size. The extra block of timber along the top edge corresponds with a block on the surface and together are intended to provide a solid area of timber to drill to accept a wire-framed low-relief tree. 

The original diorama had not been fixed in place in the first picture and as can be seen below was shifted in location a little before the final fixing, just to give things a little more room to "breathe". Landscaping is now under way with corrugated card (cat food box) doing most of the work at this stage to create the layers. The track has been extended off the original scene and to ensure there was continuity between old and new I actually replaced the rails up to the existing cosmetic fishplates. The new track required packing to level it using some thin card.

DAS clay was used to smooth out the levels in the landscape and where possible start the blend between the old and new. I accepted that I would lose some of the existing ground cover as part of the process of blending in the new, indeed a lot of the hanging basket liner grass was trimmed right down to accept new materials on top. Having gone to great levels to create new levels in the ground, a lot of it isn't hugely apparent in the end but I am happy in the knowledge that it isn't flat! At the top of this image the area for the tree to sit in is the flat patch where the plywood is showing through.

More soon...

Colin

Trailing Behind

I haven't done a lot of modelling of late, but I have completed this Gubbin Box Models Heywood open that I bought last year. I have now put to use as a new luggage trailer for the tramcar/railcar. I had previously used a Black Dog Mining style wagon for this, but it looked wrong against the railcar on the 5" curve of 'Odsock Corner. The Heywood wagon is a little narrower and should sit a little better on the curve. 

There isn't a lot to do to these 3D prints to prepare them, other than drill out and add the handrails at either end. I did however add a pair of the Owen Ryder Heywood couplings that I acquired recently, one with the hook fixed in place and the other without hook. That end actually has a split pin hiding in the coupler casting to allow a simple wire connection to the split pin on the railcar.

The wire coupling actually bends at 90 degrees away from the camera underneath the Heywood coupler to help stop it falling out, or at least that is the theory! The print was primed and then painted in Vallejo 'Leather Brown' with the metalwork in black-grey. Washes of black-grey and brown toned the colouring down and once varnished the boltheads, couplers etc were lightly drybrushed with 'Gunmetal' to pick them out. The luggage from the old wagon was transferred over and held in place with tacky wax. Being a little smaller there wasn't room for the bicycle but I think that may turn up somewhere else soon...

Colin

'Up-cycle' Revisited?

Probably the last doodle for the wrapping paper box board for now, covering the last of the considered track arrangements. This time the evolution of my 'Upcycle' scheme from many years ago, but on a brand new board, not upcycled! Nothing too specific, a yard with assorted junk, a siding with an oil drum for fuelling locos and a nondescript hut...

Incidentally, I dry-assembled the board at the weekend, really just to check the mechanics of whether it could actually desk-sit. It can, just, but might raise more questions than answers about the ideal location of electrical connections and switches.

Colin

High Tide at Humberston

This photo appeared in my cloud storage 'memories' feed this morning, taken on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th May 2008. We were staying at the Haven site at Cleethorpes and I had caught the last CCLR train of the day to Humberston North Sea Lane to return to the caravan. To my surprise on heading through the flood gates at the top of the bank the tide was fully in and the far side of the Humber estuary was invisible, giving a surreal effect of being somewhere else completely.

(Click on the image for a larger version)

This has remained one of my favourite Cleethorpes images, in fact in 2020 a version appeared over my desk as a reminder of better days. It is still there now, a reminder of a stretch of railway that is currently out of use and the hope that it will see trains again one day.

Colin

Three Point Doodles - Take Two

As promised, we return to the theme of the miniature railway depot/shed scene for another plan. This time however I have flipped the plan back-to-front (the wonders of photo manipulation!) so the lead-off leaves the scene behind a building. I have not drawn it here, but the idea of revealing the interior of the front-right building was appealing. This version does need a fiddle stick off to the right to allow locos and stock to be exchanged. 

One thing I have become very conscious of is that I have a suspicion that I am under-estimating the sizes of some of these structures for the board space/height, especially to keep it in the box. Looking at these shed scenes again, the long, flat structure across the three tracks, based on the running shed at Cleethorpes, looks too 'flat' and really needs to be two structures with a step in the frontage to add some variety. These plans would definitely benefit from mock-ups as a next stage if developed further.

The last of the current batch of plans probably gets the structure sizes about right, and for the first time the loop and siding plan gets a sketch!   

This is very much in the vein of a scenic test track, the scenery is fairly stripped back to two small structures - a bus shelter and grounded wagon body, plus fencing and shrubbery. Yes it needs more fiddle yard than desirable but if it is for my own enjoyment only...

Colin

Three Point Doodles

I've found myself doodling again... several times... I'll spare you all dumping all the designs in one post, so here are the first two, based on the 'Tragbar/Chetley' plan. I realised that I may not have really done this justice in my original mock-ups, and looking carefully the rearmost, L/H point was aligned wrongly. 

The first plan on the revised template is designed to be simpler scenically than the Inglenook plans, although it shares some common elements. There are less buildings and any provision for concealed, rear operation, point controls is dealt with by a low rock face. A grounded 18" gauge wagon body (which I've possibly drawn a little too small) from 422 Modelmaking components sits behind a sleeper-edged platform. This arrangement will allow operation of a passenger train formed of couple of 4w coaches and for another locomotive to release the incoming locomotive.

In many ways I'd like to build something that stock and motive power from 'Shifting Sands' can operate on. In this sort of space the obvious idea is to model the "other" shed of the railway (the one at Shifting Sands itself cannot possibly house everything!). This plan turns things on their head, but only very slightly... The scenic area is shortened to allow a small fiddle area on the board itself, so it is truly self-contained. New style Peco loco lifts would be deployed to lift locos on and off the layout to take their turn at the sheds.

We shall return to this theme very soon...

Colin