Pointless, but progress is being made at the Rocks by Rail Museum!

I couldn't help but feel something was in the wrong place as I walked into the Rocks By Rail Museum.

A somewhat pointless point switch! Walking further down I could see that there were far from pointless works going on!

It was a bit of a shock to see rails and sleepers taken up but there is a reason.

The platform line is suffering from sinkage caused by the fact that the drainage system is either in sufficient or actually is not there! It has got to the point where something has to be done. The plan is to lift all that track including the point, dig a trench and install a drain.

That drain will then connect into the manhole under the point just to the left of the picture above. Why is the manhole under the point? Well, apparently many years ago the track was realigned and the manhole ended up partially covered. I guess it made some sense at the time but it is not the best of situations to have to deal with it now. However, with some hard work it should be done in a few weeks!

One interesting item of rolling stock that has appeared is this rather unusual falt wagon with barriers around it. Apparently it was a tippler at Corby where its body was removed and the chassis was used to rest engines from the Class 14s that were serviced there. You learn something every day!

Meanwhile, over the maintenance pit, work continues on the re-tube of 1931. Somewhere under there is John who is reaming out the tubes so that they can be pulled out once the ends are ground off.

What looks like a battery in the firebox is actually a workshop light so that John can see what he is doing!

Moving over to the Exhibition Centre, John was pleased to show me that the timber from my kitchen Rocks by Rail Museum was now a floor in Mr. D! Good to know it has had a second life and it makes it look somewhat classy in there! Anyone for ballroom dancing?

Turning round I noticed that two of the brake vans have been moved in to dry out ready to be repaired.

Nothing to substantial but the woodwork has suffered being outside over many winters.

Moving onto my work, it was back to Gabions! But we are there!

Having run out of rocks we found some old bricks that broke up nicely and David is putting them in.

We think there is about eight and a half tons of rock material in the gabion baskets/cages and another ton and a half behind it - all moved by hand!

Moving to the other side this fence had to go and I soon had that gone with the use of a hammer!

That's a view I had not seen before!

This will be the way visitors get onto the viewing platform and we need to lower the area to match the path level behind so we first dug a trench that is level from the path.

With that done a scaffold post was placed from the trench to the top of the gabion.

And, miraculously, using my spirit level app on my phone, it is level! 

All that we need to do now is backfill from behind and put some barriers around the edge of the platform. Simples! At least we have a lot of clay and soil to backfill with!

Planting bushes!

The green fingered work of WMD continues with yet more bushes and shrubbery appearing on the scenic sub base that I am working on at the moment. Although it is a bit long winded and to some degree repetitive I find it both therapeutic and fulfilling. You can just loose yourself without having to be too worried about accuracy after all there is no blue print for a bush! You also see rapid progress as a scene you have created from scratch comes together and forms part of the small World that you are creating. That is part of what the hobby is about!

Todays efforts have been concentrated around the edge of the cutting where the fence has been placed and then beyond towards the tarmac area that will be part of the goods yard. Luckily, bushes have decided to grow over the fence in places where two panels of fencing join therefore conveniently hiding the joints. Marvelous thing nature!

Where some of the PVA glue has run down the cutting face I used some of the scatter powders that I used for the bushes to rub into it giving the effect of vegetation growing in the cutting face from the bush above.

Beyond the fence, the bushes continue and this is a photo of the Woodlands Scenic Poly Fiber product cut to size, glued to the edge of the cutting and then covered in PVA glue before a variety of mainly green scenic products are scattered over it.

Leading to this which I am pleased with!

In fact I am pleased with it all so far!

And, in place on the layout, it looks great!

There is still more to go before it is all finished like that near six foot length to the right of the picture where it looks very mundane!

The WMD film crew have been at it again!

Yes, the WMD Film crew have been busy with a third video this year showing the scenic materials and methods I have been using to create my 50 shades or so of green on my 00 gauge Last Great Project Layout. So if anything I have written about in the last few posts doesn't make sense this video might!

50 shades of green - well almost!

Continuing with the nature theme from yesterdays post, some more green stuff has been added along with a fence to my Last Great Project Layout. Now although not being a particular knowledgeable person on plants and shrubs, as I do tell Mrs. Woody when she puts gardening jobs on the chore list for me, I do know that they are generally not just green but actually they are in many shades of green - possibly fifty or more or maybe less but a lot of shades of green. Looking at a real country landscape you will see many shades of green and that is what I am trying to recreate on my layout at the moment. Whether that is successful is open to debate as with many of my projects but I am quite pleased with the way things are going at the moment. Maybe the photos illustrate that ?

That fence is some old Triang line-side fencing that is over 50 years old and going strong - unlike me! I painted it as it was moulded in white plastic and that was mentioned in the very first blog post I made back in 2020 - click here to see that post. As you can see there are various shades of green in the vegetation I am adding but I have added a slight amount of other colour in the form of red flowers...

and mauve blooms on the bush. Just something to make life a little less like 50 shades of green!

Nature is rarely tidy!

It is all very good having a nice level grass effect on your model railway scenery and it certainly changes the look of a layout as I talked about yesterday. However, nature is rarely tidy and where left to its own devices it will do all sorts of things. Mrs. Woody has never let me experiment with letting the garden go wild so my chore list from her includes a number of jobs that in effect keep nature in check within the garden confines. But, when it comes to my model railway I am in sole charge of what happens on that so Mrs. W has informed me! With this independence established I am aware that parts of my series of scenic bases are areas that would have little interference from maintenance operations and so would be left to nature to do what it wanted. How you recreate that on a model is something that has many methods developed by skilled modellers over the years, but being Woody I do have my preferred ones. 

The WMD Stores have, over the years, built up a stock of scenic materials suitable for recreating the wilds that nature creates. Most of these are things that are glued down with neat PVA or dilute PVA spread from above using an old syringe.

I don't have any particular system of creating a wild look but just go along adding as I see fit.

It is one of those jobs where you do tend to go back over areas adding a little more. Usually it is a case of better to add a little than have to take off a lot!

This is what I finally finished with on this scenic sub-base. I like the look but will probably add a little more as I work my way around the other sub-bases.

On the layout it looks far more interesting and hopefully realistic then just plain grass.

I also managed to do another of the sub-bases - really handy being able to work on them on the work bench!

With both treated sub-bases on the layout things look even more different but hopefully good!

Once the track is ballasted it should really look the part!

I'm impressed by how things are going despite my involvement!

Still with my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout and having cut the cutting and put it back together again it was time to repair the damage to the plaster work with another mix of plaster, PVA glue and brown paint. I left it all on the floor to set and remarkably I didn't step on it at any stage!

Once dry it was time to apply a brown wash to the rock face as done with the other scenic sub-bases. As this sub base is in two parts the first one went on the layout whilst the second was drying.

Next up was more greenery with the mixed mix of static grasses applied and with that done all the scenic sub-bases were om the layout and things are looking, err - well scenic! And to be honest I'm impressed by how things are going despite my involvement!

That is especially so when you look at what the baseboard was like a couple of months ago!

Anyway, with all the work over the pat few weeks the running of trains is something that I haven't managed to do, but I thought why not! It certainly takes on a different feel on the layout running trains through some scenery. 

Cutting back a cutting!

When I built the scenic sub-base for the cutting I knew that it would be close to the tracks and indeed it was! A mix of trying to keep some structural integrity to the sub-base and under-estimating the thickness of the finished surface however, made it closer then I liked.

So, using the advantage of the sub-base in that it can be taken off the layout to be worked on I decided some drastic cutting of the cutting was required which is where Mr. Saw came in handy!

Being constructed of a base of polystyrene and foam meant that Mr. Saw had a relatively easy life and the debris created, whilst minimal, were safely off the layout and easily swept up off the floor upon which the cutting had taken place.

With the destruction done things were looking good so the glue came out and the remaining front of the cutting was glued to the remaining mounting board profile at the back.

The only thing I had to do was to replace the thin strip of  mounting card base along the narrow part with something a but stiffer. Some suitable plastic card provided the answer and so was cut to the rough shape required.

It was then trimmed to size and glued to the bottom of the sub-base.

It just all needs to dry now so I left it safely on the floor - just hope it doesn't glue itself to the floor itself as I don't want to be having to cut the cutting from that!

The search for rock continues!

As a Museum dealing with the iron stone quarrying industry, Rocks by Rail has remarkably little rock which when you are filling Gabion baskets/cages is somewhat frustrating! The Gabions form the supporting structure for a new viewing platform that will bring visitors closer to the action in the quarry on operating days. However, if you know where to look, there are pockets of suitable material available and I have previously posted about the ten tons of hardened cement bags that are spread around the site. The trouble is that most of what is left is covered by things - usually those things are particularly heavy in nature!

However, we also have a CAT! A big CAT!

Moving some of the stuff onto pallets made the process a lot easier for the CAT .

There was a slight problem in as much as these very heavy steel plates were straddled over two pallets and we decided that the likelihood of moving those without a major calamity was next to zero so we left them in place. 

Although far from idea, there was sufficient clearance to get under the pallets and mine the loose cement bags which is something that the others decided I should do for some reason!

With mining work having managed to get a bout a ton of material it was time to get a Gabion filled! However we did have to construct one first but that was soon in place.

Then the rather laborious task of getting the rocks from the other end f the line and pushing them up to site using the platelayers trolley started followed by actually getting them into the Gabion.

By the end of the day the Gabion is about half full, which is good going and David and Alex are obviously pleased and no doubt ready for a rest - just like me! We still need to find some more rock though but that is something for next week.

Greenish - mainly!

This is where things suddenly move on - getting some more colour on the scenic sub-bases which in this case is greenish - mainly! I tend to use static grass for most grass areas on models. Static grass is made up of short fibers, usually between 2 and 8mm long, which are deposited onto a glue spread on the area to be grassed using a static grass applicator. What this does is to give the fibers a charge as they leave the applicator and as the applicator has a connection to the glued area the idea is that the fibers land upright imitating grass. First thing to do was spread some glue. This is special glue which is supposed to be conductive to electricity - well that is what it says on the bottle!

That is the applicator on the left. Powered by a 9volt battery it can still give you a jolt if  you end up touching the wrong part - who said model making was without risk!

I don't just use one colour - its a blend of colours and lengths!

This is what it looks like mid way through application - messy!

Application on this sub-base finished.

Getting the sub-bases on the layout it begins to take on a whole new look!

I also ' planted' the barn and created a mud track and apron around it using acrylic mud of all things - that was the bit which was not green!

The WMD film creww have been recording my escapades so far and there are two YouTube videos that cover some of what has been going on recently.