Model Railway Forum

Ingenious. Well done. R-

Thanks Roger.

Useful photos - thank you.

More work done on the backscene at the signal box end of the layout:



Factory building and two storage tanks downloaded from textures.com and stuck to the propriety backscene.
In the foreground the YE 0-6-0 diesel is pulling a short rakes of covhops away towards the chemical works (off - scene). I've got more work to do ballasting the tracks in that area and filling in the area between the main running lines and the line into the chemical works.




The scenic break comprises some of my photos of a bridge carrying pipes and the culvert for waste lime to the storage beds near the former ICI Lostock site. The original crosses a road and canal, but I've re-purposed it to cross the railway lines. I also stuck a 3D element made from wooden coffee stirrers to it and finally made some support pillars from cardboard covered with Metcalfe brick paper. At the far left At far left I've attached prints of some of my photos of the ex ICI waste lime storage beds to the propriety backscene. I have also started to contour the ground towards the backscene using pieces of polystyrene. These will be covered in papier-mache and coloured grass scatter materials to blend into the backscene.



I've bought two Hornby signals, shown here placed in their probable locations for clearance tests prior to final weathering, addition of safety rails to the junction signal and finally fixing to the baseboard.

It's all looking very good. Just a thought, in the last picture you can see the back of the warehouse, could it be given a 3D look by adding drainpipes? It would add a little depth to the backscene - as I say just a thought. Barry

Thanks for the suggestion Barry, I'll give it ago.

Instead of having to use the old steam era shed the ICI diesels now have a brand new one.






As Metcalfe don't make a diesel era shed using the same footprint as their single road steam shed I had to scratchbuild one.

I did download the Scalescenes one, but it didn't fit in the same space, plus I find them more complex to put together (a comment on my skill level rather than on Scalescenes themselves.
The basic structure is made from artists mounting board and the cladding etc. is various materials downloaded from the Textures.com website. The windows are from the Scalescenes kit, printed out on printable film (old UHP film) and a few other details such as the fire safety equipment and roof vents were from the kit as well.
So now I can run the exchange sidings in either steam or diesel eras.

In the second photo the Janus diesel is hauling a short rake of hopper wagons, while a Bachmann 08 lurks in the shed pretending to be one of the very similar EE 0-6-0 shunters used at ICI Winnington.


Photo taken by Pete Wilcox from Flickr.

Nice job with the scratch built modern shed !....... I have used a lot of Metcalfe kits and have found them to all be very good, but I have always thought the lack of modern image coverage in their range is a missed Sales opportunity.

Thanks Hound Dog.
I agree about Metcalfe. It's a pity as I've always enjoyed making their kits.

It all looks very good - no bright colours, all very industrial. I think all the Metcalfe kits are from the steam era - they can be "upgraded" by adding features that don't come with the kit - drainpipes, guttering, different roofing and ridge tiles. I used Redutex Slate roofing on my station - it just adds a little extra - and it's not a perfectly flat surface. Barry