An Unseasonal Chill

Earlier in the month I had spotted some ready-mixed filler at a reasonable price in the largest shop in the village and bought it to see how it faired, as snow...

It had been on my mind for a while to revisit the remains of 'Christmas Tree Halt', the 009 pizza I built very quickly last December, which had been stripped down after mould or some other irritant had appeared in the snow cover. In truth the board had actually been stripped back completely earlier in the year, the track relaid using Roco sleepers/secondhand rail and even painted and weathered with a non-winter scene in mind. After adding corrugated card around the outside and in the centre I had lost interest again...

With filler to hand I soon found myself carefully filling in around the track. Taking my time, rather than rushing as I had before. I actually filled outside and inside the rails in separate sessions, and split the work into small manageable chunks rather than trying to do it all at once, which I felt helped keep control of the filler. I also tried not to create the final finish on the first application! Between the rails an extra layer was added, a mix of the filler and PVA effectively skimmed on and cleared from rail sides. After a little cleaning up I was relieved that it still worked!

With the track embedded I added the bases of the roadway and platform from card, and created the raised central area from polystyrene, subtly different in shape to the original. New features on the Mk2 version are some rock faces made some time ago using Plaster of Paris in improvised foil moulds, and a Wills station halt shelter, left over from the 'Humberston' diorama. Don't panic about the black blobs, they mark where the trees go, marked in felt-tip pen and then wetted during scenic treatment. In the background of the picture above can be seen some early trials of snow mix using Vallejo Foundation white and the new filler.

The Wills shelter has had a few tweaks to make the parts sit a little more comfortably and give the impression of framework over the doorway. The original station sign and bench should sit to the left. Platform edging is very thin balsa, overkill maybe as it will be covered in snow, but the original build lacked relief in this area.

One of the plaster-cast rock faces. This has been blended into the polystyrene landscape using some white modelling clay that had originally been bought to bed in the track, but was not shall we say the market-leading brand and seems to shrink quite a bit, causing me to go back over the gaps a few days later. It will all get a covering of snow in due course! To hold everything together all exposed polystyrene and some of the clay was covered in strips of kitchen towel fixed in place with dilute PVA.

So far so good, the next job is going to be to create sound fixtures to plug the trees in, I'm thinking of cutting into the polystyrene to add pre-drilled wooden blocks that a dowel in the tree base can locate into.

Just in case anyone thinks this is madness in September, I'm enjoying doing it with time to spare and better conditions for things to dry out. I'm also fairly certain I can be finished in time!

Colin