Hornby: The Collector. Damems in 00.

So, as I alluded to in the Christmas/New Years post, I've been busy moving house over the winter. Not too busy to make things, but far too busy to post about them. Given I've picked up a few regular gigs in the intervening period, I thought I better start posting on here again. First up, a project mostly completed over the summer (alongside packing up the house) for the Hornby Collectors Club; Damems in 00.

Damems was my local station, until we moved (the shot above with the 101 in the snow was actually the last photography session on the line before we moved).

Back during the plague times (that some of my various editors insist not be referred to these days) I decided to ease the boredom of the post-home-schooling afternoons by writing some layout planning articles for Railway Modeller Magazine. Damems seemed a logical start, as it was a place that -lockdowns permitting- I could actually visit.

Some very basic 1:1 planning underway, to get an idea of sizes.

Anyway, the piece got published, was well-received, and after a suitable gap I came back to it when needing material for the Hornby Collectors Club.  This time, I thought I'd actually build one of the layout plans I'd proposed.

Back to the basic planning again.

Reclaimed MDF board, set-track, and landscaping from foam packing material, card, and papier-mache.

Scenics underway, with cobbled sheets of unknown provenance, and Airfix level crossing, and green scatter as a base layer.

Buildings... obviously, this being a Hornby article, it was going to need to use all Hornby buildings or parts, and the article was aimed at the (relative) beginner. I hasten to point out that this rather poorly built example of the 90's Town & Country range "Bell Inn" wasn't my doing, it was bought off eBay in this condition to be a parts donor.

Stripped of parts, and the walls and so on re-fashioned to look a bit more like the real Damems stationmasters house.

For render, I used thin sandpaper.

The station building itself used more of the bits from the Bell Inn, and some MDF, but this time faced in scribed card for the planks.  Both of the above being completed during a holiday away, to the amusement of precisely none of the family who had to put up with me working in the evenings on the table in the caravan.

Back in T'North, and shooting outside on the drive. Not terrific, given it was early evening (typically at the weekends it had rained heavily and I was up against the deadline, so fitting in the shoot after work).

Not long after, I decided to punt the layout towards British Railway Modelling magazine, who picked it up, requiring a re-shoot. This had to be fit-in after the move though, and was a bit tricky (again, weather). In the end I shot the pics in the basement, using some borrowed studio lights. It was also a bit of a scrabble for figures, details, and trains, as I wasn't sure where the boxes with them all in were.

The article in the Collectors Club magazine, and hopefully shortly it will be in BRM too.

At the same time as I was doing this, I was working on yet another piece for the Collectors Club to try and bank some articles before the move. More on that soon.