In Amongst the Undergrowth

Progress on the mini photo diorama has reached the point where I can say that it is complete - for now... when we saw it last I had just added the foliage material to the bramble/undergrowth patches and promised more scenic features to come. They did, as we shall see, but not until after I had taken a couple of test photos which led to me reconsidering two of my areas of undergrowth. I realised that the two patches in the front sections were never really going to be seen in photos and actually had the potential to be in the way causing out-of-focus blur in the foreground of images. Plain grass has now filled these areas.

Once the various smaller scenic effects were added to the undergrowth. It becomes tricky to see them in helicopter shots, so this next picture should give a better idea of the effect. I have used a combination of Peco grass tufts, Martin Welberg weed tufts, MiniNature flowers and some small leftovers of sea moss branches combined to fill in around the brambles/undergrowth areas.

Despite probably never being seen on camera, I added some extra texture around the areas where the newly added grass joined the old, an exercise in newspaper masks, hairspray and scatter material. This blends the joins (not that they are really visible) and just makes the plain grass areas have a little more interest to them. The reverse-shot shows the treatment along the edge of the grass.

You may have spotted that I have not gone to any effort to create a nice looking surround to this scene, just spraying the edge of the cat food box in grey primer when the track was painted. I really ought to at least gibe this a coat of something suitable, but I will probably refrain from any timber trim etc as this is really only a photographic tool rather than a display piece.

The next job will be to actually take some photographs...

Colin

Not on the High Street

I have made some scenic progress on the cat food box photographic diorama since those last experimental photos. This started with a ground cover mix made from tester pot paints, PVA and grey tile grout. The tester pots and PVA were both Wilko own-label products and sadly the opportunity to replace like-for-like is now likely to be limited. I had not been in a branch for ages but actually went in the day before they passed into administration and a couple of 1/2 price tester pots did end up in my basket... Whilst the ground cover mix was wet Woodland Scenics fine turf was sprinkled over and left to dry.

Hanging basket liner grass was then added as the start of the green scenery. There are more details on my technique in the Hanging Basket Liner Grass Step-by-Step.

 

With the grass trimmed I added some dead grass around the ballast edges using a Jarvis grass matt. Next came the basis of my brambles and undergrowth, made from the coir mat hanging basket liner, ripped apart, scrunched up, fixed with hairspray and then painted with brown aerosols (Halfords and Humbrol). They look a little ridiculous here, rather like over-scale birds nests, but as the one bottom-right shows, they will be vastly improved with trimming and adding foliage material (in this case recycled from a previous project).

After gluing the nests in place with PVA and leaving overnight to dry, I then added teased-out foliage mat material, Woodland Scenics and Hornby Skale Scenics, secured in place with hairspray and left to dry. Attention could then turn to adding further natural detail - more on that in due course.

Both hanging basket liners are Wilkos products, one discontinued for some time. It is great to model with high-street purchases, and worrying when a potential line of supply might go forever. Round here, with the warehouse up the road, everyone knows someone who has worked for Wilkinson's at some point, so my thoughts are with the staff at this difficult time...

Colin

 

On the Horizon

I've been carrying out a few further experiments with the under-development photo diorama. When we last saw it I had used the free Railway Modeller backscene and commented that it needed less foreground. With hindsight it needed less 'busy-ness' and a lower horizon too. I quickly printed off a view I had taken at Humberston last year and tried that as a background instead. 

It didn't really work, a cornfield is not really going to blend onto any of the foreground I provide and the gap where the track falls off the end is far too obvious. Something bushier is no doubt required...

I did try it with no foreground and just sky, which does rather make it look as if the railcar has reached the edge of a precipice! A fence or gate would help but may be a little restrictive in practice.

Despite the experimentation the scene is slowly progressing, ballast is now laid and I've dry-brushed the sleepers with a light wood/grey colour to make them look like weathered wood.

Colin

 

Diorama Development

As I have mentioned before, earlier this year I attempted to make a mini-photographic diorama that could fit in my 12" square lightbox for photography. I failed at this, on several occasions, and eventually gave it up as a bad job. A few weeks ago I started another attempt, this time in the medium of cat food box and polystyrene...

It's early days and some tweaking may be required, for example I may re-profile some of the raised area behind the track to lose the 'ski jump' effect behind the loco cab. I opted to try this shot using the free backscene provided by the Railway Modeller last year as a background, and it really adds some depth, although if pursued it needs to loose some of the foreground grassland and bring the trees down lower. 

One area where this version has really come out well is the colouring of the track. I had been using Halfords matt dark brown as a track colour base and getting a very heavy looking result. This time I have gone for a lot paler palette, a mist of grey primer, then a light spray of Humbrol 29 "dark" brown acrylic aerosol. Once dry the rail sides were picked out in Humbrol 160, slightly thinned. Some weathering will produce a result that really looks like dry timber sleepers and metal rails.

More soon...

Colin

Buffers and Baggage

For a while I really couldn't be motivated to get anything going on the workbench, however the weather was really telling me to stay indoors and do something so I came up with a couple of schemes to get started on. 

The first was a reworking a Black Dog Mining (style) wagon as a luggage trailer for the O9 railcar, filling the cutouts for MicroTrains couplers and fitting pre-painted Black Dog coupler/buffer blocks in their place to accommodate a link-and-pin coupler to the railcar. A careful touch-up of the paintwork has made a pretty neat job of the changes.

Of course a luggage trailer needs some luggage, so a root around found a Preiser backpack, suitcase and bag, all pre-painted some time ago. To this I added an older style case using a modified ammo case from a ground crew set, and a bike from a rather basic 3D print I had acquired, possibly from Avalon Line. This filament print required a fair bit of fettling to look anything (and you have to ignore it's square frames!), and I had to add my own pedals from a bent staple and 5 thou styrene. The other side is very poor, but you'll not see that...

Bringing it all together, this is the result with the load fixed in place using 'Tacky Wax', I hope the bike was placed in carefully on top of that luggage! I need to fashion a 'U' shaped wire coupler to engage with the loop on the railcar ends.

The other task I set myself was to add buffers and nameplates to the light green A1 Models "Albert" diesel. I had always planned to have buffers, as per the Littlehampton prototype, but had failed to  scratchbuild any buffer shanks to my satisfaction. At the Doncaster show in February I bought some cast oval Dundas 009 ones, and prepared these in red primer before opting in the end to replace the oval heads with turned 4mm round ones, which in this use really make a difference.

I have also finally named the loco, it begins with 'A' but it is 'Amelia' rather than Albert. These are Narrow Planet plates that had previously done a temporary stint on an 009 Gmeinder. With all of these smaller parts for both projects painted and fitted on the dreary days, finally a nicer day appeared when I was able to give everything a waft of matt varnish over the changed bufferbeams on both projects.

In other news, I'm also having (yet) another try at a mini photo diorama to fit in the light box, but simplifying things compared to previous attempts and mock-ups. I'm even working on some ideas for the project after that... 

Colin

 

Narrow Gauge Now

The East Midlands group of the 009 Society have run a successful series of events at Portland College near Mansfield over a number of years, at which I have exhibited both 'Shifting Sands' and 'The Old Quarry Line'. The event keeps growing and is now known as 'Narrow Gauge Now' (North of Watford!). The 2023 event on 22nd July was as good as ever with a range of layouts, ranging from a boxfile to veteran exhibition layouts, and not just in 009...

A special mention for Lockdown Park by Andrew Glover, I'm not usually a fan of whimsey but this has so much going on, including Boris Johnson. I must declare an interest here as I laid the original pizza in the middle on a bare board before selling it to Andrew, who created something beyond my imagination!

I had spotted an O9 layout listed on the event details, Welton Park by the Sleaford & District MRS. Having found nothing but a bare boards picture online I was unsure what to expect, but it was a representation of a passenger carrying 15" gauge railway. You can just see a 'Warship' in the background on passenger stock, with an MG Models Scooter and Classic diesel on yard duties in the foreground.

This group towards the front of the layout look to be suitable passing the time with a cuppa...

Building interiors are well detailed, including this workshop scene.

Despite having a bit of a clear-out recently (or even because...) I allowed myself a couple of purchases, including another set of A1 Models 'Albert' etches and a couple of 3D printed seated figures who looked suitably hunched up to be minimum gauge passengers or maybe even relaxed locomotive drivers. Expensive compared to Chinese copies of a well-known brand but cheap compared to whitemetal figures. I will try and get a picture of them in due course.

Having caught up with a few folk I've not seen for a while and seen some inspiring work, now I just need to get motivated again!

Colin

 

'Monty' - a Familiar Exmoor

The active visiting locomotive at the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway's 75th Anniversary gala was Exmoor Steam Railway built 0-4-2T 'Monty' from the Evesham Vale Light Railway. Smartly turned out in maroon you could easily be fooled into thinking that this well maintained machine had left the Exmoor works looking like this when first built.

But 'Monty' is in fact a very much rebuilt 'Markeaton Lady', built in 1996 for the much-missed Markeaton Park Light Railway in Derby. Under the ownership of John Bull the loco looked very different, especially as over the years she gained a lovely patina of a working locomotive, a huge contrast to the polished, if sometimes a little wet, appearance she presented at Cleethorpes on Sunday.

The photo above was taken in 2008, and I think was possibly the last time I saw 'Markeaton Lady' in use at Derby. The railway was a handy stop-off when visiting 7mm Narrow Gauge Association events in Mickleover and Burton-upon-Trent, usually a quick visit for a return trip on the way home. The blue Exmoor locomotive clearly had an effect on me, as my own O9 Exmoor model took on the front-end appearance and the colour influence, despite being an 0-6-2T.

Before I built my Exmoor ('St. Edwin') I had originally contemplated an 0-4-2T version on a Minitrains outside-framed chassis. The picture above neatly illustrates why this would not necessarily have worked, as the vertical Minitrains motor would actually be too far forward to fit in the cab. The dimensions could have been juggled a little but as I didn't actually have the chassis at that time it was all rather academic and the 0-6-2T version on an inside framed Bachmann chassis was the result.

The new run-around loop at the CCLR's Lakeside station offers a few new photographic opportunities, I was actually sat on the train taking this photo of the loco approaching the train to take out the next working to Kingsway. Having a loop here makes all the difference to day-to-day operations for the railway by removing the need to top-and-tail workings and just making things much more railway-like for observers such as myself...

The track re-laid last year through the floodgate and up to the first foot crossing is still looking in excellent condition as we see 'Monty' heading out through the gate and onto the coastal stretch of the line. It was remarked during the day that you cannot see as much of the coast as you once could along here, growth in the protected area of the old dunes has restricted this somewhat but there are a few breaks in the vegetation where the water can be seen. From the elevated point on the flood defences you can see a lot more and watching passing ships in the estuary passes time between trains.

The photographs in this entry have not been presented in the order they were taken, in fact the first picture was later in the day when the rain had started. The contrast in weather to this shot is marked, this was before lunch and was one of those moments where due to the lighting conditions the camera on my phone actually produced a better balanced image than my camera. But the weather did not affect my day at the CCLR, even if it did try to interrupt the official proceedings with a storm the day before!

Update: I have now uploaded a larger selection of images at higher resolution to Flickr: Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway Gala 2023

Colin