Of Lamp Posts and Phone Boxes

Just a quick update of progress in preparing 'Shifting Sands' for the Sheffield Model Railway Society's Annual Show on October 10th. As previous posts have shown, my long-awaited aim to have lamp posts on the layout has been achieved, and they were 'planted' yesterday.

The posts have been located using some lengths of the same 3/32nd tubing that forms the centre section of the pole.  Lengths of this tubing were cut to match the distance from scenic surface to the underside of the baseboard and Araldited into a pre-drilled hole. Underneath the board, once the posts were in position, enough of the 1/16th tube that runs the full height of the light was showing to add the inner working of a chocolate block electrical connector to clamp the post in position, allowing removal if required.

Another scenic addition that has been made has only been planned for a short time, from the day after Peco announced their 7mm scale plastic kit for a classic red telephone box. This has been built as per instructions (and when they say paint before assembly, you really do need to paint the inside back wall first!), sprayed with red oxide primer and finished in Vallejo red acrylic, varnished with Testors Dullcote and lightly weathered.

The phone box has taken the place of the bench that previously stood here, with a little adjustment required to slabs and some extra grass added to hide the surgery. The previous inhabitant of the bench, assumed to be the long-suffering partner of the photographer lining up his shot, has taken up residence outside the rock emporium where she continues to read her magazine!

With the layout outside for photography I couldn't resist having a play and created this image, although all attempts to digitally add the sea in the background have so far failed!

Colin