David Holman

Trees next and have been working on five this week. Nothing special, just the usual wire skeleton, aiming for something fairly small and anonymous, though being able to hide the ends of the low relief station building is important. Indeed, the trees are also low relief, being no more than a half circle when seen from above. Have departed a little from the norm in two ways. First, the wire skeleton was coated using a hot glue gun. This builds up the trunk and branches much quicker than filler, though I do add a layer of this on top to get better texture for the bark. The other change has been to use Woodland Scenics 'polyfibre'. This is essentially the material that forms the basis of their scenic matting and [just like using Postiche], you tease out a small piece, spray it with fixative and then sprinkle on scatter material, before fixing to the frame. The trees were then planted to go behind the station walls - two on one side, three on the other. After, I teased out the foliage some more, until I got the shape I wanted. Another addition has been a 'wiggly tin' hut at the far end of the platform. Looking at pictures of Fenit pier, it seemed that some sort of 'harbour office' might be appropriate, so Northport Quay now has one controlling the entrance to the waterfront. Knocked up the basic shell this morning and with no doors or windows visible, it was pretty simple to do.

Galteemore's latest model should provide all the inspiration you need, Jb and if not, check out my Belmullet thread where there are also models of MGWR locos in the early 1900s. After 1925 of course, it all goes a bit grey. However, in terms of readily available models, then little, if any is available rtr, in any scale. Modern image is increasingly well catered for, but not early stuff. As already suggested, kit and/or scratch building is the only way and the Alphagraphix catalogue is definitely worth a look, but all in 7mm scale. As well as the E class, there is a G2 2-4-0 and J18 0-6-0, along with a nice range of 6w coaches. Then there are the card kits, which form a good basis for scratch building. Worsley Works do a number of etches and these can be available in a number of scales. Note though that they are not kits in the accepted sense - there are no instructions and you need to find your own castings & fittings too, so think more an aid to scratch building. Kitbuilt stock does turn up on the second hand market from time to time, but note that, especially if you want to do proper broad gauge [and why not?] there are only a few of us in any of the scales. For example, I can only think of a handful of layouts in 2mm and 3mm scale, while Galteemore and I are pretty much flying the flag on our own in 7mm scale. There again, if you like to be different and do your own thing, I can only say that it is great fun and the folk on this forum are endlessly helpful and encouraging. Come on in - the water's lovely!

Interesting! Seems I need to go back to school... While I love reading about all the latest innovations in the hobby, guess I am (reasonably) happy with the skills I have learned, in that they enable me to do what I need. CAD seems a big step forward in terms of learning and while I can see the advantages of being able to design something that can be printed, etched, laser cut etc, I still enjoy the practical side of just doing things by hand. However, also think it is brilliant to see modellers developing and using new techniques. Just go for it!

A lovely half hour film on BBC 4 this week going behind the scenes at Cultra. No railway content sadly, but really interesting in terms of social history, so therefore important to us modellers. Catch it on I-player of you can.

Fabulous!

The only time I used Templot was to print a left and right hand point plan for Fintonagh. Used the 'Irish EM', 20.2mm gauge version, which I enlarged to 21mm on the copier. Sounds like I got off lightly!

Oh my. A stunning layout in a fantastic home. As Popeye says, when can we buy tickets?

One that interests me too. Looking at monochrome pictures, it appears that finish is certainly geographic, with plain stone in some areas, rendered in others and a degree of whitewash in some. Suspect that poorer areas would be plainer too, while there is evidence that not a lot changed until well into the 1950s in some areas. Feel sure answers will be available before too long.

Very much the sort of thing I have in mind for Northport Quay, Mark and certainly looks very effective. The list of colours to be used very helpful too.

Not a million miles from the Lydham Heath track plan on the Bishops Castle Railway in Shropshire, though that was really just a reversing point. Have long thought that a 'terminus junction' makes for an ideal model railway scenario because of the more intensive nature of operations. Mayner's post exemplifies it, which Richard Chown was a big fan of minimal track too. Nice though it is to have more, and it always looks impressive, you don't always need it for interesting operations. Having plenty of fiddle yard or storage siding space is another matter though, but this can be alleviated if you use cassettes.

Interesting, JB. My 7mm TTs have all been around 42', being mostly adapted 00 ones. My G2 fits, just, but Wolf Dog barely, so that extra 3' would make all the difference!

Some great examples there, Mark, but I like yours better! The problems with all those termini is the amount of space they need, so yours is a nice compromise, while still incorporating all the key features. Think you are right about the TT and track spacing. Being built while still ruled from London, suspect the platform widths would be the same, so a minimum of six feet for a single platform and twelve for a double faced one. In practice they were wider on all but the most basic stations, so am sure you will have enough space.

Looks very effective to me. Well done you.

Then of course there's Mr Spok, from Star Trek, who has three ears: left ear, right ear and final frontier... Sorry!

So much fun to be had doctoring commercial chassis into something plausible and nice to have outside valve gear too. Not many eight coupled locos in Ireland though, with only the Swilly having them on narrow gauge. Suspect that large motor precludes one of their 4-8-0s, but would probably fit inside the tanks of the 4-8-4s. Wheels might be a bit small, mind. If you could fit a pony truck at each end, then a new, as yet unheard of, class of Swilly or Donegal tank could emerge. On the continent, they were happy with 0-8-0s with large overhangs, but pony wheels would look better, methinks.

This would make a very fine project for someone and a great place for watching trains go by.

Nice! And a rather elegant 4-4-0 too...

Have carried on tinkering with the backscene this week, so am putting the latest pictures in the layout section. It's as much about doing a bit of 'proof reading' by taking photos, which give a different perspective to seeing the layout on its own. Had to get in some fresh supplies to add more detail and texture. These included a couple of new, good quality artists pens and some cheap oil pastels, which helped me improve the two trees and add details to the buildings. Far easier to do windows, doors and gutters with felt pens than paint brushes! I also found half a roll of 'cool white' LED strip, which is self adhesive, so after a bit of soldering to make a new plug, I now have much better [and more even] lighting over the layout. Hopefully, this makes for better pictures and you should always do painting in the same light as you want to display/exhibit your models. At the moment, I'm still not sure if some of the colours are right - the houses for example seem a bit dull. However, it now feels like it is time to start on the scenery next to the backscene, including the walls and a couple of trees, as this will help blending everything together.

Iain Rice's formula is that a train should be able to traverse a scene three times its own length to look 'right'. Seems to work & is something I've stuck to over the years. Have also always felt that odd numbers of vehicles, especially bogie vehicles, looks better somehow than even ones. Got no explanation for this whatsoever! One of the joys of 2mm scale is to have decent length trains set within the landscape and 10 wagons or equivalent sounds good to me - would that I had the space in 7mm scale!

A fair few sheets of the stuff in my models! Never actually built any of the card kits, as I just use them as a drawing/template for building them out of plastic sheet and microstrip. They certainly turn out well though.

Am afraid I read the title of this thread and immediately wondered if we had royalty as one of our posters...

Think you will understand it all better than me Ken. There is a bit of lathe work, laser cutting and 3D printing involved too - though am sure there are alternatives. The sections on cranes and RC locomotives will hopefully be most use to me. Apparantly, a lot of pioneering work has been going on in Germany, where, apparently you can already buy HO scale RC model cars!! How good/how much have no idea, but another few years and no doubt we will all have AI controlled vehicles scurrying around our layouts. Donkeys, sheep and cattle too, with any luck.

On Monday, spurred on by kind comments, I went to look at the back scenes and must confess they looked pretty horrible. The camera can and does lie, I'm afraid... The colours all seemed too dark and or dense, while what should have tried to present a three dimensional scene looked disappointingly flat. Hey ho, I thought, these things rarely work out first time, but Monday's work wasn't much of an improvement either, as the dull colours were still coming through the next coats of paint. I'd tried adding brighter tones and textures but, even brightly lit, it just wasn't right. Clearly a new approach was needed. Starting from the ground up, as it were, I painted in the areas of bare rock and then used crayons and felt pens to add detail to these areas. This looked better, so I continued with the felt pens, sticking to pastel colours as shown below. Various greens were used to add what looked like thicker foliage and low bushes around the rocks. Have since gone over some of these areas with a pale yellow pen, which has helped tone things down. In the course of doing this, I realised that by varying the direction of shading, I could better suggest contours on the hillside. A few more touches and we now have what what I hope is a more effective scene. Other work has involved further layers on the back ground hills and water, while I've also added a couple of trees to provide a bit more variety and [more importantly] help hide the join in the backscene. Although I've used flash, the shadow from the shelf above hasn't helped and in this case, the painting now looks better than there photo! Feeling a bit more pleased with myself, I've also started blocking in the buildings and foreground details. More felt pen and crayon work to come.

Here's something that might interest you, Ken - a new book by the remarkably talented Giles Favell. Giles has been building radio controlled 7mm scale road vehicles and cranes for several years, but this book shows that he has expanded his portfolio considerably. Starts off with a look at his layouts, then there is a chapter on modern components [and how to source them], before dealing with the construction of individual models. He started off with die cast models of flatbed trucks and vans, graduating to articulated lorries and working cranes. This side of the water, these models feature on a layout called Denton Brook, which notably has several road vehicles wandering around, but also a quite extraordinary working crane lorry. However the book shows he has kept busy with things like a 7mm scale Austin Seven [tiny!], a tipper lorry and even a traction engine. As if that wasn't complex enough there is a fork lift truck, self propelled railway crane and even a 'walking man' - albeit with a hidden mechanism that owes much to ice berg theory. There is also a section on radio controlled locos and he is now producing 4mm scale radio controlled road vehicles... All rather splendid, though I must confess I understand very little of it at the moment! For anyone interested, the book is published by Wild Swan ISBN 978-1-912038-62-6 Amazing models.

That little book has so much inspiration in it for modelling the North West of Ireland! As for view breakers, that is a challenge, though the Achill line did have a tunnel of course. Being near to the sea, a short tunnel through a headland would look ok, while the headshunt means locos would not be shuffling in and out during shunting. Large buildings are thin on the ground, not that many trees in that part of the world either. a clump of Scots lines perhaps? Maybe arranging a low hill at the front edge could work? Wouldn't need to be very high to hide a 2mm train and would look fine rising up from the water's edge. Another thought is simply framing the two stations as two separate pictures, with a short, 5-10cm frame in between. Being at right angles to each other, viewing both stations at once is not easy anyway and is a dodge I've seen used effectively a few times at shows. Larass is pretty complete/discreet as a scene, while the run into/out of Cullenamore should work well with that section.