The North Circular - Austerity & Nostalgia.

[Dad-1]

More done,

Still sticking odd bits of styrene !!
I've decided to try and make a marsh area alongside the lake.
Can't ever recall seeing a railway model with a marsh, but then who would be daft enough
to try. It'll certainly introduce some new effects.
The story is a small underground stream breaks the surface. Being fed by a hilly upland it
will at times have a high flow that fills the marsh, but as I'm modelling summer (greenery
on the trees) it's running at lower volume.



A long way to go and things to learn !!

There is no reason why a miniature layout can't be challenging to build.

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

The butchered Dapol oil tank liner now cut to length.
The painting is just an rough undercoat onto which other colours will be added.
The difficult thing now is to make up key and edge stones to cover the small gap
between the liner and abutment wall.





I know people will want to look through the pipe so I'll have to add interior painting
and some mossy growth as well as pebbles in the stream. Simple layouts can be as
complex as you like. In the meantime this guy has a job to do.

I can still slide the pipe out.

Geoff T.

[Phred]

Dad-1 wrote:
this guy has a job to do.

Aha! I wondered how you were going to get all that detail inside the pipe!

[Dad-1]

It's a Hobby, not a race, the snail has delivered some possible plans !
I once bought some resin buildings, may have been from Anyscale Models,
although the source is immaterial. They are of historic Scottish buildings.
More or less a small Black House, and just a 4 wall enclosure.

If this layout is placed geographically in Scotland then these may be the ideal
things to try and include. Certainly it would fulfil the North Circular name.
This is only 'window dressing' and I may well change my mind.

This is the open 4 walls, I have cut out one window and would have to try & make
a wrecked interior.



The rough heather thatch roof and rounded corners are typical of Black Houses. This
roof wouldn't fit the 4 walls as it has the chimney cut-out.



Currently thinking just the Black House down close to the lake might be best. To fit
the Highland theme Here I have my 0-4-2 Killin Pug, also in my collection there is the
HR 0-4-0 Pug .......

Nothing decided yet, must have a look in the loft to see what I've got hidden up there.
An unplanned layout construction can be very slow, try this & that, here and there until happy.

[Dad-1]

I knew it was a while since I found time to work on this micro,
it's been longer than I thought.

Today I've started adding some plaster over styrene fills. Just a quick
splash of grey paint on the first plastered section. This is going to be
a slow job, even slower adding paint, first coat to seal, multi colours
later.

Here with 'Anna from Ukraine' pulling a correct region empty wagon.



Geoff T

[Phred]

I think I can, I think I can...
Where did you get one in Ukraine livery? I haven't seen any around.

[Dad-1]

A DIY job Phred.

The Grant Rail version is overall yellow - including the match truck that I removed.
Now the question. Who were/are Grant Rail ?
Well I didn't know and wasn't particularly bothered, however because of a professor ? youtube blogger
Anna (Has a couple of university degrees) I thought I could rename Anna and turn into the Ukrainian
flag colours.

I still want to drill the exhaust outlet in the cab roof, and paint Nice big white buffers ......
No sniggering at the back !! Plus some gentle weathering, this is a hard working girl.

It all makes my version unique. As Grant Rail meant nothing to me, why did I buy ?? It was at a special
offer price of £69.99. I just love these little locomotives and IF I see the Gower Princess really cheap
somewhere I could easily end up with 3 of them.

Geoff T.

[Phred]

Dad-1 wrote:
A DIY job Phred.

Nice work!

[Dad-1]

Still plastering, but the cutting is almost formed.



It's very narrow, roughly based on the Paddy Line in South West Scotland.
In a way I regret not keeping it very simple.

Geoff T

[Lofty]

In a way I regret not keeping it very simple.

I know that feeling very well, if I just add…

At least on something this small you can turn it around and get easy access to all surfaces.

[Dad-1]

Temporarily rested - I've just realised that it's only 4 weeks before I'm involved with
two exhibitions. At my club's on 13th January I'm doing some track making and need
to mount a code 75 fine scale crossover to Set-track geometry onto a board as I can't
show it working loose with dangling frog juicers !!

Doesn't sound too bad, but I'm at an exhibition at Frome on 6 & 7 January with my
Thomas layout. Then Christmas is in there somewhere as well.

So back to my Work Bench for a while.

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

What ??? 5 Months since the last posting in this thread.
Left behind ? not really, but I had to do the work on this outdoors and what has the weather been like
for the last 5 months - awful.

The iceberg, or styrene build up was requiring a considerable build up of wall plaster. My old bag had gone
off, old age, plaster has a shelf life and mine was well past it. The new bag of plaster and a couple of days
out on the patio meaning most is now covered.

The flash certainly bounces off the white surfaces. I have been running the 1970's issue Caledonian Pug with
one shorty coach (I hate them really, but this is a cost controlled build) The Scottish type cottage needs it's
plastic card base locating and securely sticking in before being sealed with one more mix of plaster. Then it's
lots of painting with different colours to try and get rocks looking O.K, grass and trees.
Ahh the lake, it's sealed for a resin fill and I have some grass seed to paint silver to be imbedded part way
through what I hope will be a 3 different layers of resin. I hope it works !!







We could always pretend that the white glare is from snow.
Anyway it shows the project IS STILL live.

Geoff T

[Phred]

Dad-1 wrote:
one shorty coach (I hate them really,

I have a few of those. Not rushed on them but they're the only thing that will fit more than one at a time in my station!

[glencairn]

I like seeing things on layouts that are not normally modelled yet are seen almost everywhere. The pipe is one of them. Well done.

As for the 'shorty' coach? As Phred says "The only thing that fits more than one at a time in the station." I am sure had Hornby done a better job on them they would have sold far more.

Glencairn

[Bufferstop]

The number of those shorty coaches I see at train fairs/swap meets I doubt Hornby could have made more of them! I've cut and shut them into just about every number of compartments you could want. The one I haven't done is turning one into a brake coach.