Chufferlands Holiday park. Time to rip it up and start again

[Big Al]

Hi Class 66

I've got some brick paper but it is just a straight brick wall and I would need to have an arch incorporated within the portal. I contemplated covering the portal with straight brick paper then adding a separate arch in just a gray concrete effect.

Because it's all so squeezed in I have so little room. So a plastic portal may not work, i'm not sure to be honest.

[Big Al]

Hi everyone.

Been working on a retaining wall. It is made of 3mm MDF.
I tried a different approach to gluing the wall to the MDF. I used some varnish to stick the printer paper, printed with the wall pattern. Then I applied a coat of varnish to the front face of the wall to seal the print on. It is satin varnish and with only one coat it just soaked into the wall any way.

I left that to dry overnight in the shed and this morning checked it out. When I applied the printer paper to the MDF it stuck great to the front face but is a bit bubbly on the back. It looks fine so on to the next bit



I then used two screws fitted to the base board to hold the wall in place to check for fit. I checked to see if the trains hit the wall and it is dangerously close. When I set the railway layout up I spent to much time in getting as much track onto the board as possible. Some areas are a bit tight and will require some clever thinking on my part ( and most of you because I'll be on here shouting help every now and then ). A bit of propping here and there until the glue dries is necessary.





I used some non solvent no nails from Wickes to stick it in place. I used quite a bit because i don't want it to spring off.
It's a bit OTT but it will be strong, anyway if there's another war starts I'll be under here.

Beside where the goods shed is there is a smaller retaining wall and this was used from a bit of left over. It was a bit fiddly but when its covered with foliage and the like it will be better.







I will make some more MDF and paper wall up to continue on up the side of the goods shed.

But next time I may change the method only a little. I don't think ill wrap the paper around the MDF just do the front face and I'll apply more varnish onto the finished wall. The colour did not run but the paper did get a bit soft after a while.

Once it's all dry I will get some undercoat plaster and profile the embankment above the two retaining walls a bit more.

I hope you all like the progress let me know and thoughts you might have.

Cheers Alan

[Big Al]

Hows it going out there.

A bit more progress on the embankment/tunnel affair.

The last two nights I've been building up the undercoat plaster to smooth out the paper mache.

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nearly ready for some scenic effects like scatter and bushes and some paint.

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Photo above you can see the two layers of plaster from last night and tonight. Note the not to clever manually operated point position. I'll sort that out later maybe with a surface fitted point motor the Peco one. Is it a PL11

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This is the view the passengers from the train will see.

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Another angle.

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In this view can be seen the only bit of original Hill/mountain before the nasty railway people came and cut most of it away. Tut tut.

I hope you like them, feel free to let me know what you think.

Cheers Alan

[Big Al]

Ha Ha It's Friday.

That means I, like all of you, get time to do a bit more work on the layout. The idea being that the hills are mostly rock based, requires that I paint a light gray / brown sort of a colour. I will probably dry brush some other colours to add detail. The lumpy top section of the largest 'tunneled' part will be smoothed out a bit to give the impression of earth having built up over time'

If any one has any reference pictures that they can direct my to I'd be greatful.

Add a comment as I'm getting a bit lonely here . I'm gonna start singin' the blues soon.

Is there a smilie with it's hands over it's ears LOL.

Cheers every one, I better go and do some work now to justify my being in the loft all weekend.

I think it's St Albans show this weekend. Any one going

Alan

[Class 66]

Impressive work Big Al. It certainly looks the part to me

[Big Al]

Cheers Steven, thanks for the comment.

I have Named the layout by the way it is based on a play on words with 'Butlins' and is now called Chufferlands Holiday Park.

Thanks to all of you who gave me suggestions. 'Summerton' will be used on one of the stations. Also the suggestion of 'Althorpe was made, a use of Al and Thorpe. This will be the name of the halt at the park.

Cheers for now Alan

[Thunderbird]

I love the curved wall, it fits in so well with the rest of the scenery.

what i really like about your layout is the way it has changed from the first pictures. It's the kind of thing that you don't really see with magazine features, which incidently is the reason why i joined this here forum.

it looks like you've been enjoying yourself over the last year and a bit. great work keep it going.

[Big Al]

Thanks for the reply Thunderbird.

Yes, we do have had fun up in the loft. Quite often there's me and my two kids up there with hardly any room but we stay well occupied with bits and pieces.

Today I've been adjusting the shunting area. I use Hornby uncoupling ramps because there cheap and easy to install. They are not ideal because there needs to be space left between the rolling stock and the buffers or the coupling action wont perform correctly. But other than that they work well enough. It's all about money at the end of the day. If I was bundled then I'd have point motors, kaydee's. DCC, 500 loco.s, a Rolls Royce, A house in the country, a swimming pool, a butler.

Any way back to reality. My eldest was up there doing some shunting and it went well = brain reasonably taxed at the end.

All I need to do now, on the shunting front, is to finalize where the wagons go to at the other end of the track (where the new tunnel and embankment is).

There is enough room for about five wagons at the goods shed there and I'll create another space for four or five at a mid point on that run.

I'll do some more pictures soon Cheers Alan

[Lewis Nash]

looking good big AL,the skaledale east goods shed fits in well,i bought 2 of the skaledale east items[a waiting room and a water tower] and their great,keep up the good work!!

[Big Al]

I have started to do some scenic s on the embankment. The photo's where taken while some of the glue was still wet.



on the left side of the photo you can seen the hanging basket liner with it's backing still on. Later when the glue is dry I will tear it off and trim the fibers back.

I'll post some photo's of the whole embankment later.

Cheers Alan

[Big Al]

Now that the glue has dried I pulled of the backing from the hanging basket liner. I decided to trim the left over liner that was stuck down quite short.

The bushes are made of a mixture of things.

Some poly fiber painted green, this is not the railway stuff that is already dyed but just some I had around the house. I dipped it in some very watered down green paint then covered it with scatter. Once it was dry I sprayed it with watered down pva mix with a plant sprayer.

Another two of the bushes are scouring pads cut to a variety of shapes glued on painted and added scatter.

The bushes with the wild yellow flowers are saw dust built up to a level painted and then some Polenta added. Polenta is a kind of pasta Italian thing. once dried it was sprayed with the pva mix.



Another photo with a passing pannier and an auto coach



The greenery is a bit to tidy looking I think there must be some gardening elves come at night after they've finished making shoes.

Let me know what you think

Cheers Alan

[Black-Marlin]

Looking good, Al...the dark green bushes/ground cover is particularly effective (and may be another technique I'll wind up stealing...!)

Regards
Gavin

[35005]

That looks fantastic! Well done
Just an idea but maybe you could put some ivy running up the retaining wall?

[Big Al]

Thanks for the nice comments.

Gavin, you are welcome to use any techniques, I'm glad they will be useful to you. When I put the poly fiber on to the layout it went a bit flat with the pva still wet so I teased it out a bit and when it was dry it looked a lot better.

35005, that is a good idea about the ivy. I would like to get some of the Noch 'leaves' cover. That would look the best.

I used some of the green paint mix I had left over to paint the hedges that have been on the center part of the layout for a while, they look a lot better. Again they are just pan scourers cut to various shapes.

Cheers Alan

[Black-Marlin]

35005, that is a good idea about the ivy. I would like to get some of the Noch 'leaves' cover. That would look the best.

Hi Alan. The ivy used by both Gareth (Dr Stroganoff) and myself is a Gaugemaster product and can be obtained here:

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=GM156

When sprinkled on glue it produces results like these:



Hope this helps
Regards,
Gavin