Previously on... Ben Struggles To Fit In Yet Another Project This Summer.
The Peco Rail 200 Competition, to build a model-railway on a set-sized, laser-cut baseboard. It seemed such a good idea back in May, then Summer was a bit manic. There was a lot of work for British Railway Modelling magazine, some for Hornby, and a lot of family drama. It was to the point that the glue was literally still drying as I took the final pictures, the day before the deadline.
Just to recap, here's the plan.
The height restriction of having it no more than 14cm high above the baseboard meant a struggle to fit this in, modelling in a large scale, so I cut down into the frame. It was still going to be a tight fit, even using the sharply-curved Rokuhan tracks.
Cutting out the trackbed would be a quick and easy job... until the electric jigsaw died. And so it became a longer job, with the trusty coping saw.
Testing the clearances with some stock, and establishing the ground levels.
Starting planning where the paths would go.
For the surrounding walls of the old garden, I turned to embossed dolls-house brick paper, attached to the walls with double-sided tape.
To disguise the trackplan a bit, I decided to employ lots of tunnels and bridges.
To further emphasise the fact this was a model village, I wanted to replicate this culvert-formed tunnel from Anglesey Model Village.
I had some of this ribbed piping, unused from when we installed the new sink.
Does the trick nicely, another detail that makes it clear this isn't a Z scale layout, but a larger scale layout with smaller trains.
The pond was black paint with some Koi Carp done with acrylic, then a layer of 1mm clear perspex on top. The landforms were then done with carved foam, then a bit of filler to create cliff faces. Tunnels from N gauge platform edging, and a bit of stone-effect plasticard.
For ornate railings, having discovered the intended model-ship brass railings would be way too pricey, I went for these 1/12th scale plastic dolls-house railings. Too tall as they came, they could be cut-down nicely for waist-high for the figures, with some lower railings for the borders.
Coming together nicely in this shot, with static grass sheet, some longer-fibre sheet, and a mix of whatever trees, shrubs, and bushes I could find in the scenery boxes. Flowers scattered over the bushes were from Katy Sue Designs.
Buildings needed to be done quickly- I didn't have time to do 'proper' buildings, plus they needed to look like the slightly flat-textured structures you actually get in some model villages, relatively simple structures. I ended up designing nets on the computer, and filling them in with downloaded brick and stone texture sheets, and some windows and doors from online stock sites.
Assembled around blocks of Balsa wood, with mountboard-card roof pieces.
For the trains, I'd be using the standard Rokuhan 'Shorty' stock, on their unmotorised, plastic display chassis.
A bit of a repaint into a slightly more British livery.
Same for the single-unit railcar, which will eventually run on the layout.
For the figures, I did think about re-using some of the old figures from the last go at Port Eden, the Miniature Railway end of the attraction. But I wanted something a little more 'family' in tone.
After searching around, I settled on these from the Schliech range; they had quite a few kid figures. I thought using the smaller children would help with the scale, and the limited available height of the scene. The vaguely Germanic looks and oddly styled/coloured clothing though would play into the nominally mid-1990's era of the Port Eden project.
Some of them would need a bit of cutting and re-modelling. I can see what they were going for, with 'girl feeding a carrot to her pony', but said vegetable looked a little... suggestive.
Carving away the carrot left a slightly-odd shape, disguised though with the balloons and a teddy. Someone has clearly been doing well on the arcade games.
It had all been looking a bit monochrome, but adding some brightly coloured figures helped, and the balloons added a kitsch, colourful, playful atmosphere. The star-shaped ones are chunky clothing buttons glued back-to-back, then large one here is a bouncy-ball, with the strings from paperclips.
I was only able to get hold of one adult figure in time. Ah, the weary, thousand-yard stare of the parent who's had to indulge their offspring on a trip to the fairground, and help carry and hold their tat..
The bridge over the middle of the scene limited the height, so as an experiment (and to disguise her from her identical counterpart a few inches away), Blondie here was remodelled to be kneeling down. Note the painfully-90's metallic silver skirt too.
These two ended up being the centrepiece of the layout; there's also a little boy, but his expression was frankly a bit haunting, so he's on the edge of the scene, partly hidden by a hedge. Well, I dragged my three foster-daughters around enough places like this when they were little...
Here's the finished layout; as I said at the start, the glue and paint was still drying at this stage, but I'd run out of time for submitting the final photographs.
Just to prove it's within the 14cm height!
And that was it, done enough to enter the competition, with 24 hours to spare.
And just to see how it looks compared to the concept sketch...
So, the big question; am I happy with it? Pretty much. It's something a bit different from the other competition entries I've seen. It's a shame it ended up a bit rushed, but I had to prioritise paid work and family. Looking at it another way though, it means I nailed a working micro layout in about a fortnight of evenings and late nights. Plus, building it has scratched a metaphorical itch. I might end up upgrading it after the competition, add a few more details and figures, but overall, yeah, pretty happy with it.
