I wanted the various major elements to go, brown for platforms, grey for biuildings and green for fields. To my surprise this immediately highlighted a couple of areas where my vision was not going to work, primarily the road running around the inside of the layout. The road followed the track and used all the available space leaving no room for buildings or scenery. Not very interesting. After some thought I decided to put in a sharp left turn towards the scenic break and place a builders yard on the inside corner. This also had the added advantage of giving me the room on end board for the semidetatched houses I wanted.
I then decided that simple 3D models of the major scenic elements would give an even better visualisation of the layout, how the various elements would look and if they blended together well. I could have built a reduced scale model of the layout but the real thing was set up for several months in my mum's garage I decided to build them full size. I had an excellent source of raw material for this as my office uses a lot of photocopy paper and the reams come in thin but sturdy corrugated boxes. Even better the boxes are hardly glued together and could easily be flat packed for the journey home.
The first thing I built was the station and the platforms, which quickly made me realise just how close the station was going to be the the edge of the board but at least it confirmed it would fit, just.
Next was the bridge. I initially decided to put this diagonally across the left hand corner of the layout, so there was more interest than a bridge at right angles across the track. However, the cardboard model presented me with a dilemma as it cut the scenic space in two, really limiting how the remaining space could be used.
In real life the road to the left of the station climbs up to the bridge and I was also intending to build this, adding some single storey shops for interest. This didn't work however as the shops and slope almost completely hid the trains from the viewing public. The solution was suggested by my mum, which was to move the bridge towards the station but still keeping it slightly oblique to the track. This retained a more natural look while giving the corner space back for scenery. I also decided to keep the road flat so as to not hide the trains but still allowing me to include the single storey shops. Finally I had to discard the waiting room as there was just not enough space between the platform and the track in the goods yard behind it. A little frustrating but one of the constraints of the narrow boards but I will still be keeping the platform canopy though.
Metcalfe kits were used for the engine and goods sheds but the foot bridge, terraced housing, and fencing were all made of cardboard. Everything was built very quickly and held together with no more than Sellotape, pva glue and Pritt Stick. All the effort was well worth it though and will hopefully mean the scenery is much more pleasing and interesting for the public.
