7mm Heybridge Basin

[Richard Gawler]

Yep.

I do need to be happy with my creations, and I am proud of almost everything I have posted on WT. Let's face it, if I wasn't happy I wouldn't be posting except to ask for help.

I was a bit cautious of posting my station flower bed because it would seem a bit simplistic. Nevertheless, I had decided each scenic structure should have its own post; and I had to post it now (to keep the sequencing right) or perhaps never. And I have explained it is a flower bed not the foundation of another building.

. . . but we do still shorten buildings.

This seems a good time to mention Heybridge Basin Signalling Centre and Traffic Management Office. The Basin Extension is worked one engine in steam, so no signals but I do think there should be at least a token to allow possession of the line beyond Heybridge, and a telegraph to allow communication back to head office.


This has lead me to sucumb to a second building from Narrow Minded Railworks, this one they intend to go with a ground frame.

Really, this a 7 x 5 shed but somehow I like the proportions. A place to keep the telegraph and a ledger, and keep the signaller sheltered from the worst of the weather though without any heating.

The proprietor of Narrow Minded Railworks has been ever so helpful. They printed this as a mirror image of the one in their eBay listing, so I could have the door at the end near the station.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have glued down my first scenic models, and so my groundworks give way to the landscaping. I haven’t used plaster for years, though I have used paper mâché and card surfaces. This is my first go with Sculptamold.


I will probably curse the water column for evermore, but I have to fix it now so I can fill in the adjacent ground surface. Offcuts of foam board to reduce the depth of the landscape formation (see later!)


I want the mature tree to be demountable so the tree gets a locating tube, a ply spacer and some mesh where its roots have raised the ground surface. I have shoved the sharp ends of the mesh downwards into the cork.


Three layers of card to make a profile, and more patches of foam board.


Cling film and masking tape, then the Sculptamold.


The metal mesh was good; the mixture dried out overnight. The foam board less so; and a patch 12 mm thick laid directly onto a cork tile even worse. These areas are still damp at the end of the third day. I suspect priming these surfaces with PVA was unnecessary (if well-intended) and it is certainly slowing everything down.

Patience.

 

[Richard Gawler]

The Sculptamold near the baseboard joint has dried out enough to work up this side of the baseboard joint.


I have two of these end cheeks (as transit panels) from Grainge and Hodder. The strip of clear adhesive tape is to help me release the panel later. I dyed the Sculpamold brown so I could see it, and then pressed DAS modelling clay up against the tape to build a profile.


Quite a decent-looking edge for a baseboard join. The dark patches are where the Sculptamold reached the end of the baseboard.


There is a temptation to work up the mating surface on the extension but I think it is best to focus on the main board. The extension (with the sea lock) was an afterthought and it will become a distraction.

 

[Richard Gawler]

The surface of the Sculptamold I laid 12 mm thick (on 13th July) dried out after about 80 hours. I have no idea whether it is dry all the way through!

I am using a builder's PVA, "Ever Build 506 Universal". This is much thinner than the craft grades of PVA and it flows easily, as though it already contains a wetting agent. Next time, I might prime the surface underneath the Sculptamold, or put a layer of wet PVA, or do neither. Certainly not both.

 

[LarryG]

0 gauge is certainly more satisfying. Even where the track is laid on the baseboard unballasted, it still looks realistic.

 

[Richard Gawler]

0 gauge is certainly more satisfying. Even where the track is laid on the baseboard unballasted, it still looks realistic.

Larry this is very kind of you. I do enjoy making things, and my choice of subject is letting me do this to my heart's content here. I watched 'Blackwater' hauling a PW train on a club layout and I found the sight more satisfying than watching trains in the smaller scales; I felt the models actually looked like they had a purpose. I couldn't do this project in 00 (let alone N): I don't have the manual dexterity or eyesight to achieve the standard I want but worse, the end result would look like something of nothing. Conversely, I find modern diesels and mainline coaches rather overwhelming in 7mm; good in a garden but otherwise all too much of a good thing. Also, because such models I see are RTR, I wouldn't get much long-term pleasure from owning them.

I am however still short of satisfaction here. To be blunt, I want success but I have only the vaguest of notions of how to get it. I have a visual balance on Heybridge Basin; and I can achieve a reasonably spacious apearance as long as I don't fill up the sidings. I am on my way to an old-fashioned look, though this needs more effort to lock onto the 1890s. Making this scene specifically Essex is very difficult indeed; at least in part because most of Essex was much like Suffolk and Norfolk before its 1930s housing boom.

My present challenge is my choice of colours for the landscape. I can experiment on fairly large sheets of card before commiting myself on the layout. If I can get this right then the ballast can go on afterwards, and suddenly a picture ought to emerge.

 

[Alan]

Richard if you can try and find Tollesbury Quay model railway on the internet. A lovely layout based on Tollesbury further down the Blackwater than Heybridge Basin. It even has the tide coming in and out. It is an O gauge layout.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Richard if you can try and find Tollesbury Quay model railway on the internet. A lovely layout based on Tollesbury further down the Blackwater than Heybridge Basin. It even has the tide coming in and out. It is an O gauge layout.

MRJ no.246 has nineteen pages of this wonderful layout by Martin Stringer. I will study the photos with care.

 

[Pencarrow]

At the moment, the choice of colour for natural surfaces is giving me the greater difficulty. I must make a start somewhere, so it seems sensible for this to be where ignorance of the prototype can help me; and few observers have real evidence to educate me and spoil my own little made-up world.

E H Bentall pioneered the use of concrete to make building blocks for walls and buildings. An example is the cottage at 5 Colchester Road, in Heybridge, CM9 4AL:
Cottage in Colchester Road

This building is the former lodge for the mansion named The Towers, now lost to modern housing development.

I will imagine the railway used blocks like this to build the passenger platform at Heybridge Basin. I am using embossed styrene “paving slabs” from Roxey Mouldings, these give me the 2:1 aspect ratio.

View attachment 218534
The ignorance is, I don’t know what the natural colour these should be. I have settled on warm shades to reflect the local aggregates, and give me a contrast with the setts which will be of granite.

View attachment 218537
The platform copings can be stone flags rather than concrete slabs. I bought these offcuts of stone slips from the late Richard Stacey and they have been in my scenics cupboard for years. Richard's family continue the business as “Miniaturebrickscom” through eBay.

View attachment 218536
There is a lot of yellow brick in Essex, even my 2000-built house has some. I am happy with all of these masonry colours. The track looks less harsh in real life.

View attachment 218535
If I can keep going and the platform looks good enough, it ought to draw the eye beyond the expanse of fake water in the basin.

I have consumed all of the large pieces of stone. I expect the rest of the surface will be something to look like compacted aggregates or ash.

Hi Richard,
To my eye the colours of the platform stonework are too 'forward'. I would mute them with a thin wash of grey to knock it back a tad. I've always worked from the premise that colour fades and is muted with distance and that, at the distance we view our railways, more restrained use of bold colour aids realism.

Obviously just my personal opinion, others are widely available.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I've always worked from the premise that colour fades and is muted with distance and that, at the distance we view our railways, more restrained use of bold colour aids realism.

I've got out my metre rule. If I stand behind my layout as if enjoying a little shunting, my eyes will be between 0.45 and 1.0 metres from the model. If I am at an exhibition, the viewers on the front side will be rather further away; their viewing distance might be 1 to 1.5 metres.

These dimensions scale up to represent 20 to 65 metres. Quite a big range, but the min-max range for the exhibition viewer is proportionally smaller than the view for me. I suppose for me (standing closer), an over-muted centre-field is better than an under-muted far field. Conversely, reasonably life-like intensities will go well with model photography. My present opinion is, I am probably overthinking this much too much!

To my eye the colours of the platform stonework are too 'forward'. I would mute them with a thin wash of grey to knock it back a tad.

So far, my use of really bold colour (red) is for small parts: the handwheel on the water column, the gears on the crane. I reckon, if what I need is a thin wash of grey to knock a few things back then I am in a happy place