Building "Longstone"

Building Longstone

(21st layout)

Two buildings for the "village" board.

The exhibition layout in Gn15 scale was a much larger affair.  Measuring 7ft 6" x 3ft 3" it was built on four baseboards, two being placed back-to-back with a back scene board between them, and two placed transversely at each end.  This width would give me the space to use 12" radius curves as planned-for.

(click on images to enlarge)

The underside of the layout showing the four boards built of 9mm and 6mm ply wood.

The two back-to-back base boards are suspended between the end boards which have the built-in support legs.

There are scenes on three of the boards, with the fourth being used as a fiddle-yard.  Therefore, the layout will be viewed on three sides.  The scenes are a village scene, a rocky moorland area with "gill" and a bridge over a stream, and a woollen mill.

The top of the boards showing the position of the various scenic elements.  The back scene boards separate the dioramas and the fiddle yard at the far end.

The Peco Streamline 0-16.5 track was cut into short sections to give it a more realistic look, and laid onto ballast underlay.  Over time, the track will be heavily weathered with added weeds too.

Peco 0-16.5 track was used on the scenic boards with turnout control by Tortoise slow-motion Switch Machines, in the fiddle yard I used Peco "00" Setrack with Peco PL-11 side mounted point motors.

The fiddle yard whilst test running.

We built the village scene first as there were several buildings planned, a shop, cottages, chapel and a goods shed.  A very worthwhile exercise was making card mock-ups of the buildings, to place them, and see if they looked sensible proportionally.

Card mock-ups of the main buildings.

The stone buildings were made in the same way as the "maintenance shed", with Slaters 7mm dressed stone glued to foam board, thin mdf roofs with card tiles, and mdf capping stones.  This would keep them as light as possible, as weight would be a consideration all over the layout.

Shop and cottage under construction. 

The completed structure.

Shop window display with familiar products on sale.

The completed bridge over the line to the mill section, made in the same way as the cottages.

The tiny goods shed at Longstone Station.  Made with coffee stirrers and strip wood on foam board, and dressed with a 7mm scale valance by York Modelmaking.

Some items in 1:24 scale are hard to source, but you do eventually find things that will be suitable, and in the village scene several Lemax items were used such as street lights and fencing.  We also found some stone resin items (designed for a fairy garden at a local garden centre under the name "Miniature World") useful such as the post box, vegetable garden and some animals.  

We also added figures, animals and birds to the whole layout and I will describe them in a separate post.

The cottage and village store being developed scenically.

The small garden at the end cottage showing the raised vegetable patch.

The next board to have scenic treatment was the "Fox Gill" board, a moorland scene.  The bridge over the stream was tackled first, made with small mdf sections covered in Das Clay which were scribed with large stones.  Lemax "canal" fencing was used across the span.

The sections for the bridge scribed and painted.

The bridge in position showing the support girders and fencing.

There are undulations added to the gill board, faced with rocks.  The sides of the gill were made with Heki Rock Foil fixed with hot glue and dry-brushed with light greys and browns.  The rock surfaces over the moor area were made with a sawdust/ p.v.a/ grey acrylic paint/advanced lightweight filler mix which worked well.  The surfaces were scribed before it dried.

Adding the rock surfaces.

The colours were then added using thinned acrylics paints, and also dry-brushed acrylics.

Scatters, and 4mm scrub are being added to the ground, and the stream by my wife.

The stream was made using several layers of varnish using small chunks of cork bark for fallen rocks.

Plant life has been added to the stream.

More plant life added.  

Trees should be massive in this scale, but as we were making a moorland scene we tried to model "stunted" tree growth.  Below is a messy workbench photo showing the garden twig/Woodland Scenics Tree Armature skeleton, and beside it, adding the foliage.

Tree construction.

The only building on this board is the passenger shelter made in the same way as the goods shed.

Arriving at the small station is loco No.4 "Delta", under test.  More Lemax fencing is in the foreground.

The woollen mill board, to be called "Spring Head Mill" would have large low relief buildings along the back scene board with two sidings and a water column.  Added details were general industrial rubbish, a stone wall and a dead tree.  Again I did a card mock-up of the buildings before starting their construction.  The same method was used for the buildings, and I used York Modelling (0-105) 7mm large industrial windows, and headers stones for the main mill structure.

 Cardboard mock-ups of the buildings.

The side wall of the main mill building.  The first floor windows were shortened by one row of panes.  Using this "bobbly" Slaters 7mm scale material leaves holes along wall edges/cuts, which were filled with Miliput.

The two main buildings finished.  The building in the foreground is the stores and offices.

The Mill is board finished in this posed photo.  A covered rail entrance to the mill has been added using a wooden structure and home made corrugated roof sheets.

I was worried that locos or stock may fall off the side of the layout accidentally, so we fixed acrylic perspex panels all round the sides of the layout.  Before we did this though, my wife fixed scenic plants and bushes to the inside of the perspex to give the scenery another depth, and this has worked well.  If the trains are viewed from their own level the acrylic sheets can't hardly be noticed.

Perspex panels were one of the last additions to the boards.

The perspex can hardly be noticed when viewed from this level.