I think most micro layout builders have thought at some point about building a seasonal scene, myself included. I thought about it again in November this year in light of having acquired what I thought was a thick cardboard 30cm cake board earlier in the year. However I reckoned that I might have left it a bit late at my rate of progress so decided not to. Roll on a week or so and challenged to create a Christmas decoration for a virtual Christmas meeting I simplified the plan down, and this is the result...
More of a decoration than a serious layout, on starting construction I discovered the board was more likely MDF than card when stripped of the foil covering. I added some strips of recycled 8mm ply underneath to strengthen it. The track is some (very) secondhand N gauge flex track with the rails curved using an improvised rail bender. This was surrounded by mount card, and covered with wood filler. The rest of the scenery is polystyrene and card covered with wood filler, then a layer of white paint/filler/PVA mix and the snow itself is largely paint. Two Noch fir trees form the centrepiece and are accompanied by some smaller, bare sea moss trees, recycled from my daughter' s winter diorama.
The sign and bench are scratchbuilt from timber scraps, treated with button polish (shellac) and lightly painted. The sign was printed on photo paper and fixed in place.
The loco is my modified Minitrains Bagnall 'Isla' and the brake van modified from a Dundas WHR kit. The wagonload of presents was constructed especially for the project and started life as a scratchbuilt O9 body that was surplus to requirements, it was narrowed down, extra floor plank ends marked on and placed on a Colin Ashby 009 chassis. It contains miniature presents made from balsa blocks wrapped in miniature wrapping paper downloaded online and printed!
Although 009 at the moment, in theory an O9 version is possible if the right stock was available...
Colin
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