Gavin’s been in touch with his LMS model railway. It’s an impressive track layout to say the least:
“Dear Alastair,
I have been receiving your hints and tips for some time now and thought you might like a peek at my model railway in Gauge 00. It is my first model railway and I started it 5 years ago when I was 3 score and ten years young.
I wanted to re-create some of my home town of Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire UK during the 1950`s when every building was covered in industrial pollution and the L.M.S. railways were still operating as I always liked their crimson colour scheme.
I also wanted to try and create the contrasting countryside and hills and moors which surround Halifax and Sowerby Bridge so I went on location and did panoramic photos for the backscenes.
All the shops and house are lit up inside at night and the shops are complete with interiors. A lot of the buildings are scratchbuilt and the rest are from the excellent Metcalfe card range. These will be replaced in time with the authentic buildings in their right locations.
The hills are from scrap Polystyrene hacked to shape with a breadknife and finished of with course sandpaper to the right kind of “shapes” befor plastering with normal household filler brushed on nearly dry and tainted with black powder paint as a base colour.
With experience and experimentation you can get some very realistic contours and geological features with this method. As the plaster is drying I dipped the almost by now dry 1″ paint brush into green,orange blue or black powder paint as I went along until I had the topographical and colour effect I was aiming for. Just practice as you go!
Buildings were from picture mounting board or balsa wood etched like the sandstone buildings, walls etc of this area.
I drew the buildings on the computer from original on site photos that I had taken, scaling them as I drew them. The railway bridge was made from a high density pizza base which is round and comes on some makes of pizza. It has the surface finish of the sandstone and looks quite realistic.
There is still a lot of finishing work to do, more people and balasting etc. but I have been buiding a 1/12 scale Colin Archer radio controlled cruising yacht in between which is a replica of a full size version I built in Sydney, Australia 35 years ago and which is still sailing out there to this day.
Yours sincerely,
Gavin”
A big thanks to Gavin for sharing his LMS model railway. I think his work is superb.
(It also reminded me of Peter’s layout: Model railway village.)
That’s all for today folks.
Please do keep ’em coming.
And if you want to roll your sleeves up and get back in to this fine, fun hobby, the Beginner’s Guide is here.
Best
Al
PS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.
Need buildings for your layout? Have a look at the Silly Discount bundle.
