On the Road Again...

Slowly chipping away at the scenics for Corri-llyn once more, attention was turned to the road. There was some slight trepidation as prior to this I'd never attempted inset rails with filler, but the physical construction turned out just fine, even the inside check rails proved no problem for an engine like Skarloey on the tight 6" curve.

Colour wise though things got a little tricker. I'd initially wanted to try an emulate an early 20th century style road (Very dusty, bits of loose stone here and there) but quickly realised I should have made this decision BEFORE adding filler so it could be achieved with ground cover materials. So I now had to try and create an older looking road with a surface that looked like somewhat smooth asphalt. 

First Attempt - In attempt to recreate the somewhat yellowish 'off white' that dusty country roads take on I'd given the road an all over coat of earth brown, followed by light dry-brushings of cream and ochre, before further dry-brushings of grey tones to try and give the impression of tire tracks. Suffice to say the result was not convincing of pleasing, but I had a rough idea as to how to fix it which is honestly far more important and satisfying.

So after letting the first coats dry, it was time to try again.

Second attempt - Much better, and much simpler. This time round the whole road area was given a coat of Revell Tank Grey, before getting a dry-brushing of Dust Grey on top, but pulling the brush in the directions that road traffic would travel. You might just be able to make out the brush being pulled across the crossing, the light markings of a tight three point turn and an even fainter turning circle in front of the goods store and office. As is always the way, the brush marks look much softer to the eye than on camera.

The Thornycroft was a great help in trying to work out where/how a vehicle would manoeuvre in this space. It probably is a little on the large side for this layout though when compared to scenery already in place. Perhaps a slightly later time period and a small Austin van would look better?

Playing Trains

Once again I was Merseyside bound last weekend, though this time in the name of 009 rather than visiting any real locomotives. 

A visit to my Dad's house allowed us to both spend a good chunk of the day 'playing trains' with his 009 layout. Essentially a large S bend in 8x2ft, it's a nice little setup.

This is very much an at home 'fun to run' layout, and with the potential for three train operation it certainly is. It also provided a nice opportunity to bring some stock with me and photograph it in a different environment.

The 'faux-Heywood' Varikit certainly looked quite at home with the toad brake and a slightly modified Egger Bahn balcony coach. After some fine tuning with the gearing it ran the best it ever has, improving it's performance with each run. The Sentinel and Railcar also put in appearances throughout the day.

The visit also coincided with the monthly meeting of the Merseyside & SW Lancs NG Group meeting of the 009 Society in nearby Rainford. Being a smaller, more informal meeting the layouts attending didn't particularly have name boards attached, but there was still a nice line up for what was a small one roomed church hall. Apologies, but I was having such a nice time I forgot to photograph any of the attending layouts!

Rather dangerously, the 009 Sales Stand was also in attendance. As is always the way, too many temptations, and I ended up leaving with one more future project I hadn't planned on buying!

After that brief excursion it was back for another round on the layout.

Overall, a very enjoyable and relaxing day out. Certainly got plans to go back to the Merseyside meet again.

I do like this crossing scene though!

Thunderbolt

I'm not normally one for going out of my way to see specific engines, but in the words of The Mikado "I've got a little list" of ones that I'd like to see if fortune ever sees me passing by. It's quite fun this way, you never know which one you're going to visit next. With that in mind, yesterday saw me taking a day trip to Liverpool, and despite it also being my first time using Lime Street Station I was more interested in taking a slight detour down to the Museum of Liverpool on the dockside...

"Oh, Sam! What a little beauty!"

I just had go out of my way to see Lion. I must have first been introduced to her through a repeat BBC2 screening of The Titfield Thunderbolt some time around 1998/99, and she's remained a firm favourite of mine ever since. There's just something so pleasing about her appearance, which is slightly odd as if you look at all the individual components (Wheels taller than a boiler, wood clad boiler, that massively tall funnel and overly large copper cap to name a few) on paper they shouldn't compliment each other, but somehow they do.

Looking down from the balcony of the Liverpool Overhead Railway exhibit (Another fantastic reason to visit this place, so many oral recollections to listen to besides physical relics!) she did appear to be quite dusty, but given the tender end is essentially squeezed into a glass panelled bunker I imagine it's not the easiest exhibit to clean. 

And finally, in true modern internet fashion, did it really happen unless I include a photo of myself with the old lady? You'll have to forgive the slightly wonky angle, my photographer is still in training!

Another one off the list, but certainly one I wouldn't mind visiting again.

Going Retro

 Well, not quite, but almost.

This is one of those silly projects I've had written down for many, many years and finally had a go at back in May. It was nothing particularly challenging or unique, but it's something that to me seemed like it would be a lot of fun.

Long, long ago in a far away place known as 2004, and having just had a ride behind narrow gauge locomotive Linda in Phenryn black (The only engine I think looks good in black!) a much younger Rob was in the shop at Portmadoc's Harbour Station choosing what would be the very first scenery kits to build for the train set. My choices at the time ended up being the Wills Weighbridge Hut and a Peco Water Tower. Honestly, not a bad selection when looking back.

I certainly built them up, as I remember both the weighbridge sitting at the side of the tracks and leaving the 'arm' on the water tower loose so I could swing it out to 'top up' and engine, but both sadly vanished with subsequent train set rebuilds and eventually packing all the OO trains away into the attic.

I'd always thought about having another go at both kits, partly for old times sake but also to see how far I've come modelling wise. Saving the water tower for another day, the weighbridge was tackled:

Very basic construction, but a few tiny embellishments help to make it look just that little bit different from all the other Wills weighbridge huts out there. Extra window bars were added by pinching an idea from one of Mr Ford's books with a similarly replaced door handle, bargeboards were taken from a Peco doors and windows pack, finials cut and shaped from 40thou square strip, the missing angled piece for the back of the canopy was cut Wills corrugated iron sheet, and for a bit of extra variety a redundant chimney stack from a Wills platelayers hut was fixed to the back (The hole for the metal smoke stack in the roof tiles being filled in).

The real challenge for me though was the painting. I'll admit I shy away from bricks: I've never quite been able to get them right. But a while back I saw a video demonstrating how to 'paint' bricks by applying a mortar colour all over and then rubbing a terracotta artists pencil over the top when dry. Having tried it, I really like it. Adding a dark wash over the top to randomly run in the mortar courses helps add some variety whilst also blending all the faces together. Perhaps next time I might try picking out odd bricks in darker colours (I did pick odd ones out here, but the wash seems to have blended them in a little too well!)

A tiny amount of drybrushing on the door, window, canopy, bargeboards and sign finished off the structure nicely. Something interesting I noted whilst building: The sign is moulded onto the building end, but the roof ridge has a flat top along the top of it for a sign. A change of opinion late in the design stage?

Going back to 2004 a Hornby GWR 'Dunster' signal box followed sooner after, perhaps another one for the 'to do again' list!

Face Paint

This last week saw some colour being applied to the fascia boards of the new layout. Two reasons for this: Firstly, the grey tones were getting at me again so a bit of colour would certainly make it more enticing when looking at weekend modelling projects. Secondly, whilst painting I retroactively realised that if I was soon to start putting down a fair amount of watered down PVA on mdf I'd rather put some for of seal on it, no matter how small. It have even proved unnecessary, but I'd rather play it safe than sorry.

Having a look in the paint box to see what colours I had in stock, the following options were found from the now defunct Wilkos tester pot range (I need to find a new supply, but I doubt I'll find 75ml pots like these for £1 a go now!) From left to right, back to from we have: Treetops, Elf, Botanical Garden, Dark Ivy & Urban Jungle.

Whilst I do have supplies for a traditional grey/black fascia option, I want to have a try at something different. Pale greens seem to be becoming more and more common on layouts I've seen at exhibitions recently, so a micro layout such as this provides a perfect opportunity to give it a try.

I started out painting one of the faces in Treetops but quickly realised that even this mix of grey/green was a bit too luminous in person. Switching to Botanical Garden provided a much more pleasing result. Still enough green in it to provide a bit of colour whilst not being too overpowering to 'wash out' the look of the eventual scenery.