Industry Lane

Thanks Chris. The MDF comes up ok with a little paint. For O gauge, you could even tear into a layer of the MDF to give the worn away effect of concrete.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Now all the ground formations have been completed, a lick out raw umber was given to the surface. This was then followed by quite a few applications of scenic materials, from sifted soil, Chucks Filth, static grass fibres, and various flocks and foams.



As can be seen in the pic above, the PVA is still wet !



The buildings in the above pic lacked down pipes, so...



...down pipes were added including the odd vine growing up them.

At the very front of the layout, I needed to build a small bridge for road transport. Using a piece of I beam, a small angular sheet of styrene, some rectangular bar and a short length of handrail, this was knocked up.



A pic from the front with the bridge firmly in place, painted and gravelled over.



The road across the canal, leads down to the cement siding.





Above. Still a little work to do at this end of the layout...

I tend to use 3 or 4 colours of grass to give a much more realistic feel to the layout. Between the tracks, the grass is more of a straw colour with less green grass, whereas on the outer edges of the layout, the grass is greener. I do run some straw coloured grass along the road esges as well. Patches of weed (clover etc) can be seen coming through the grass occasionally.

This is where fences are required and I purchased the Ratio Security Fence kit. It is a little fiddly to make right, but the results speak for itself.



As can be seen above, the rest of the scenic material has been duly put in place between the cement siding and the warehouse sidings. As in real life, unless the bottom of the fences have been sprayed with herbicide, a lot of weed tends to grow there, courtesy of the birds sitting on the fence, doing the daily fertilising...



A close up of the gates and fences. This is a very good kit, although I have not added the barbed wire to the top of the posts. maybe I should just remove the angled tops ??

This area at the very left hand end of the layout had me thinking, what to do here in the hatched area ??



The fence was pulled back and some of the base scenery removed, including some of the hard stand area in the cement works.



Utilsing the Scalescenes kit (TO24a Industrial A Warehouse), I kit bashed it a little as I only needed so much of it and knocked this up...



I completely blocked in the warehouse sliding door and added a length of sandstne (ashlar) and brick wall.

What was really needed was a backscene that would marry in with the backscene on the back wall of the layout. Good mate Gormo put me onto Photo Filter 7. Thanks mate. Here I could manipulate photos to get the desired effect I was after. Some of the images here were reversed, reduced and so on. Rather than trying to produce on solid image, I decide to hand cut then position and paste in the right position on the layout for best effect. This is the end result.



and another from a further distance up the line.



I was asked on the other forum what I was to do along the front of the cement siding, as the track is reasonably close to the baseboard edge.



Looking at this pic above, the track is no more than half an inch away where the buffer sits. A small retaining wall was knocked up with foam core and Scalescenes brick paper.



This area was filled in and grassed over... Hopefully it will stop wagons from toppling over...



Having all the backscenes in place, the major scenery (ground covers, bushes, fences etc) done, it's time to focus on the small details.

The loading dock under the gantry crane looked a little bare and so, something needed doing.

The answer was rusting industrial waste !



All this here is bits and pieces frm the scratchbuilding box. This includes off cuts of thin styrene, styrene tube, corrugated card, drinking straws, alluminium fly mesh, cotton and Lego ! A few crates and barrels were thrown into the mix as well.

Below is a close up of all the industrial waste.



If anyone wants to know how I manged to weather these bits and pieces, let me know and I'll explain. Just a pity I didn't line up the two halves of the barrel better.. Whilst on this pic, can you find the Lego ??

...and a close up of the rusting pipes..



You can see the colour of the drinking straws in this pic !

Well, that pretty much takes the layout up to date. I doubt that there will be much more to post on for a while, as I'll be taking the family on holdays soon.

Cheers for now,

Gary.

 

Toto wrote:

Keep guessing Toto !

Thanks again for the kind words. My next layout I would like to tackle a wharf scene...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Ron wrote:

We have a winner folks ! data:image/png;base64,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

Yep, it is a small Lego bush used in the technical sets. There is actually two of them used amogst the junk.

Cheers, Gary.

ps. Thank you to everyone for their kind words.

 

I have just commented on Ian's thread (On30 Shunting Layout) regarding his fiddle yard, and this had reminded me that I have not posted anything in relation to the fiddle yard on Industry Lane...

I built the fiddle yard using the very same technique for building the baseboard on the scenic section. This is 11mm x 18mm pine sandwiched with 3mm ply, at a total length of 24". I had added some 'fingers' to the fiddle yard frame where it will slot into the main scenic board. Off the bus wire was soldered a fairly strong and durable connector, for power supply to all 5 departure/arrival roads.

This pic below shows the simple method of connecting the boards using the 'fingers' and also the power connection. The tracks are glued to 3mm MDF using PVA. The MDF is the same thickness as the cork underlay used on the scenic section, so that eliminates any 'step' between the two boards.



Lined up and ready to be slotted into place. The power connector also slots into the void between the baseboard top and bottom.



You can see the two seperate sector plates. Three roads for the main branchline entering the scenic section and a two road sector plate for the oil/fuel branch.

Once assembled, it looks like this below. The length of each siding will hold short trains only. For eample a Class 25 and three (TTA) tank wagons or a Class 08 and 3 x YGA Sealions or perhaps a Class 22 and four Presflos...



There is enough movement in both sector plates on the 12" wide baseboard.

First to the left,



then swing back to the right.



Eventually the fiddle yard will be boxed in from the front of the layout. The front wall will be removable for when I want to play trains at home.

Cheers, Gary.

 

As you have already guessed, not a lot has been done on Industry Lane. Before I went away, I played around with some PVA to replicate water in the canal. A small lot was poured in and spread about. I let this sit for about ten minutes to allow it to find its own level, then I added some dirt/stones/ballast to the mix. This gives the effect of erosion and wash along the canal walls.

This is the end result after allowing it to cure for the time I had been away and upto now.



Looking down, it does look opaque with a greenish tinge. The green is from the base colouring. I don't mind the opaque look as it is an industrial canal where and when everybody dumped their wastes. Have you ever seen a crystal clear industrial canal ??

Here is a close up over the soil/stones/ballast along the base of the walls.



By pouring the soil in after the glue, it creates depth where if the soil had gone in first, a lip would have formed on the PVA at the edges where it meets the soil. This would not have looked real good and would have been a PITA to remove.

Today I have been tediously removing and planting some weeds in the canal. I used a pack of Noch 'Reeds' and a pack of Noch 'Water Knotgrass'. I also took two barrel/44 gallon drum halves, filed an angle on them and removed the lid of them both. The lid or top of the drums were filed fairly fine with a quarter round jewellers file.

This is the result.



The other half submerged drum is further up the canal near the canal tunnel mouth.

I will allow all this to cure/dry overnight and then I will go back over the surface of the PVA with anotehr very thin stippled layer, but not too stippled as these canals flowed slowly, taking its effluent and wastes out to sea or a nearby river system.

Whilst I'm posting pics, here is one of the Presflo I weathered on the layout.



Can't do a lot on the layout so time will be better spent weathering the other 5 x Presflos...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Toto wrote:

Don't know about that Toto, I don't think enviromental issues were that important 40-50 years ago !

Cheers, Gary.