Back scene for the railway

The last missing essential for almost every exhibition layout is a back scene.  As with the rest of the layout I wanted to keep this simple and light. The disadvantage of course is the loss of robustness, however even the thinnest ply starts to get heavy quite quickly and you still need to protect the surface if it is painted or papered although permanently fixing them to the layout is one possible solution, however this can also the increase the width between the boards when they are bolted together.

I decided to use a plastic sheeting put under laminate flooring. This is a square section plastic corrugate like that used for estate agents 'For Sale' signs. I chose the thicker of the two thicknesses available, which was about 3mm and full size 2400mm sheet was relatively inexpensive at under a tenner. This was sufficient  to put a 30mm curtain around the front and sides with some to spare. 

The plastic is held against the edge of the layout with 6mm bolts but having set the layout up at a couple of shows these will be changes to 13mm bolts, the same as the rest of the layout. this is not for strength but simplicity, so whatever bolt you pick up it will be the right size.Strangely when I looked at a packet of ten washers in B&Q they were almost the same price as a packet of ten bolts with washers and nuts!?!

The ribbing does show slightly but the idea is to cover with card that can be painted with sky blue and clouds initially, then further detail can be added to complement the scenery once its in place. Velcro strips across the joins have also been employed to keep the panels together.

It's a Cardboard World

When I started to consider the scenery I initially painted areas of the board where 

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.

Packing up the layout

I will soon be posting an article on the blog about adding the third rail to the layout and mocking up the scenery from corrugated card but thought I would quickly show you it all crated up ready to go home. Quite understandably my mother didn't fancy sliding around on the drive de-icing the car now the cold weather has set in, which meant taking the layout home.

The layout arrived at my mothers as individual boards, which unless great care was taken could easily be damaged. On top of that I have now added a delicate 3rd rail as well. Therefore to protect the boards I opted for the age old method of crating them together in pairs, face to face. This was always my intention and another reason I used the metal locating pieces for the bolts. As you can see from the photos, the end boards are just thin ply left over from the build with batons of wood to strengthen them. The batons are glued and screwed in placed in line with the captive locking pieces of each board. Some additional captive fixings had to be added where the boards join on the side instead of the ends.

The track exits the side of these boards as well, so additional protectors were also formed from scrap wood. You can see this on the side of board with 'start' written on it and the one behind. Some of the end pieces will become redundant once the scenery has been added as they currently hold the boards very close together to save space. The pairing of the boards may also change if buildings conflict with each other.

The intention is to now work on the boards one at a time or in pairs until May, when it will get a test run at our club open day. This will still be as a work in progress though but after that I have permission to put it back up in my Mum's garage again, thanks Mum! (She reads the blog by the way). However, the pressure is on as the layout is booked in for its first proper show in November 2013. Still, only the scratch built buildings to do, all the figures to paint, rolling stock to weather, kits to finish and couplings to add to the freight stock. Hmmm think I'm going to be busy.