Zoom Trucking

My neighbour Sam came and helped me fit a tricky switch, he is a sculptor making prototype wargame figures. He has built his 5 year old, train mad son Zav a great OO scale raiway and his wife owns Zoom driving school.  He brought me a Walther's Cornerstone freight station he didn't want.  This is what I've done with it so far.

One end wall

One of the spare extension pieces cut down

A hole cut away

the cut out door and window glued in

The walls assembled

Mortar brushed on. This is a thin mix of Polyfilla and gouache paint

Excess mortar wiped and brushed off followed with a coat of Dullcote.

Interior details for one open doorway.

Signage

A few views

Detailing started

Thbest bit, growing the story and themes for each area.

The road gets laid down. I may take out the grout between the lines and replace with wooden grade crossing boards.

Maintenance Mike has his spanner at the ready.

The billboard bedded in with some undergrowth

Another old structure rescued.

Part of the old mine complex that I built over 30 years ago now was a covered conveyor house which was languishing in a drawer. I made it from showcard braced with stripwood and clad with birch or spruce strips. Never wanting to waste a nice looking structure I wanted to incorporate this on the layout but couldn't think where to put it.  I tried it between the cliff face and the tramway at Saratoga but it didn't make sense there, then I thought of the Victor Mine. Bingo! A bit of cutting and fitting, a new trestle and an abandoned tailing pile and it adds character to an already good corner of the layout.

 

Built to last!

 

Glued in place and trestle plastered in

You can just about make out a FSM ore chute casting underneath 

Tailings piles from shaped pink foam, trying for size

Tailings piles painted with sand sprinkled on

Tailings (sieved garden vermiculite) with sand and catlitter ore sprinkled lightly over 

 

 

Ten minute advertising hoarding

It took me longer to download, resize and print the advert which I found on a model railroad website than it did to peel off half of the inkjet paper from the back, stick it on a piece of old, saved scribed siding and build a frame. The boards below the sign are made from Grandt Line fencing cut down. It just needs settling into the ground cover then it will reside happily here in front of Ashford's Mining Supply.

The Saratoga Mine scene is finished!

It's taken over thirty years for my scratchbuilt model of Malcolm Furlow's Saratoga Mine to find a permanent home on this my first layout since I was 9 years old.  The mine tramway is now complete and in place.  Next job is to repair all the damage to various other areas and scenes of the layout that I've bumped and banged over the last 6 months!  Then I can get to look at the depot scene. That will be a challenge.

The overall mine scene

Big Solomon pushes another heavy ore cart to the tipple head.

Scrap from scrap

I've been amusing myself working up some details and I found a bit of a resin casting of scrap metal, I think it was intended as a wagon load. It needed a makeover so I set to work. The casting, by an unknown British maker stank to high Heaven of paraffin/kerosene when I trimmed it but a spray of Dullcote cured that. Being thin it broke in half and I glued the pieces side by side which made a more pleasing shape. I'd trimmed the bottom edges randomly to facilitate installation without irritating straight lines. Much junk from my scrap box, including a cut down and sanded thin, plastic window frame complete with microscope slide glass broken glass was added.  The only item I made was the wood crate made from Evergreen strip.

I thinned down the bottom of the scrap pile casting with a razor saw and then trimmed away the straight edges with a cutter in my Dremel. I'd painted the casting some time ago. I added bits from plastic kits including the Airfix JCB digger buckets much distressed.

The cat is called Ernie