Monday 26 September 2011

Having a little doodle

I like doodling and thinking of ideas for small layouts, small layouts appealing to me because they can cater for all the different type of railways I like. I don't think I could ever commit to just one big project, I'd probably get bored halfway through.

Here we have a back of an envelope plan for a 3x1 foot (excluding fiddle yards) micro depicting a fictitious halt and crossing on the Wenford Bridge branch line. The forthcoming Kernow Model Rail commissioned Beattie Well Tank being the catalyst and now on order!

The rear of the layout will be about 3 inches higher than the front which will be a gnat's todger lower than the rail height, the halt being set into the cutting on the far side. High 'Cornish hedges' will add a nice and easily achieved feature. The backscene will be photographic as with Catcott, (see here) this I'll shoot myself, and prepare for the local repro/printing house (I have just penned an article for the popular press on how to do such). I will probably use a flexible 1 foot high plastic base for this which will give me the all important curved corners rather than using 'Bendy MDF' as with Brewhouse Quay. The photographic image will be treated a little in Photoshop (with 'Paint daubs' as with Catcott) to get rid of the pure photographic look, it's important that the modelling takes centre stage rather than the backscene, but it's also important with such a small layout that it feels like it is part of a much bigger landscape.
  • A detailed construction of this layout starts in the May 2012 issue of Model Rail Mag - find out more here.

3 comments:

  1. The moment I say the line squeezing through the houses on the right, I thought Hellendbridge, Wenford line. It's a location I've wanted to model for a while.

    Great idea! Doom Bars all round

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  2. Thanks - yes, it's based on that. Even when modelling 'faction' it's importation to add familiar features to help place a layout. One should be able to tell where a layout is based without any rolling stock for it to be convincing.

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  3. On the Isle of Wight there was a station just outside Cowes called Mill Hill Road which also looks like this - the tunnel and part of the curved platform are still there.

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