Garden Railway Saturday; Binnie Kits GVR Open

A second open wagon; this time, one of Amy's.

Something of a contrast in styles, this time in plastic. The ever-reliable Binnie Kits, and their Glyn Valley Tramway Open.

Body superglued together.

Quite a complicated chassis; being a reasonably long vehicle, the chassis has a rocking cradle built in to give the wheelbase a degree of compensation to cope with undulating tracks.

Same sort of livery as the North Pilton wagon, to provide the basis of a possible engineers train. Same drybrished weathering, with a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil to bring out the plank gaps.

 

Warhammer Wednesday: Rogal Dorn Main Battle Tank

Having built up the Rhino, I decided I wanted another armour kit. I'd seen this one featured online through Warhammers site, and a few build blogs. I couldn't find one for sale anywhere though in West Yorkshire.

Happily, Acme Games in Llandudno came to the rescue again! I love that shop.

A lot of stuff in the box.

The plastic was definitely thick, felt thicker than the Rhino. Snippers definitely needed for freeing the parts.

Lots of detailing and customisation options for this one.

Little bit of detailing work I was able to do myself, drilling out some of the gun barrels.

What is with Citadel having trouble with the floors of their armour kits?  A whole weirdly missing panel. Lots of other modellers have commented on this. Insert jokes about Flintstones-style tank crews having to run the tanks along...

The after-market suppliers have come to the rescue though.

Again, spray painted in black as an undercoat, before a matte-green coat.

In a similar manner to my Rhino kit, I wanted some troop figures for cameo scenes. The tank came with a couple of crew, but I wanted some soldiers. I had in mind some scenes of the tank on a break stop, and non-fighting-pose soldiers were a bit of a rarity. Eventually I hit on getting some loaders from the heavy weapons crew sprues, and got a couple online that had been split from a box set. I built up a few figures in more casual poses, and painted them the same colours as the tank.

Same locations in Wales I'd used for the Rhino. Up in the woods...

...and the moors above the site. Trying some forced-perspective stuff with the foreground plants and moss.

I wanted the effect of these being 'in universe' photographs.

Again, I really liked this kit. Apart from that bonkers bit of design work with the floorplan, the rest of this kit was terrific. Loads of customisable options, and went together brilliantly. 

 

Garden Railway Saturday; North Pilton Open Wagon

Needing rolling stock for a test train, I was finally able to use a kit I got as my subscriber gift when I started regularly buying Garden Rail Magazine.

The North Pilton Works open wagon is one of a range of modular wagons, to a similar design. Laser-cut ply, and some lovely metal wheels.

Considering this kit had spent a decade or more alternately in the loft, or a cellar, it was in pretty good nick. Only a little warping, but it was so well designed a kit that once it was all together, it held in place nicely.

There was an interesting, well thought-out mechanism for the opening doors.

With packing for the move underway, I was a bit limited for paints, so sprayed acrylic with some Citadel black for the ironwork and chassis.

It looked a bit dull, so I went for a Ffestiniog-inspired (in its turn, inspired by British Rail Civil Engineers, in turn inspired by Dutch Railways...) yellow stripe. Some dry-brushed weathering, and a gloss varnish coat finished it off.

 

Hornby: The Collector. An Industrial Tramway in 00 (Part 3)

And now for the final part of the Burneside-esque tramway saga, the countryside section.

As it went between the villages, the tramway stuck to the roadside; here, it went down the length, where the public footpath now runs.

Good old Middleton, and the Balm Road Branch, the location that just keeps on giving. As close as I could get to the atmosphere of Burneside in the present day.

More upcycling; this is actually the board from the Pensnett project, that was used for the exchange sidings. Usual packing foam and thin card scenic base.

Papier mache, from packing paper.

It ended up rather more grass-grown and covered than the real Burneside tramway had been, and I wish I'd had the budget for more, and better, trees...

Same business with the gloss varnish and scatter.

And here it is in print. Usually I break up these dioramas for re-using components, but I like this project enough that I'm probably going to keep these boards for future photoshoots. Who knows, I might be able to incorporate them into an actual layout.