West Allen Street & Thawne

[danielb]

Not a lot of progress yesterday, but that was due to me spending my modelling time organising my cardstock kit texture papers. I went out and bought a metal file case/organiser and a load of slip wallets, and sorted all my Clevermodels textures into order - one kit per slip, one texture set (brick, wood, etc) per slip. The case now contains over 150 individual texture paper designs and over 30 cardstock kits ready to be built. Enough to populate any future extensions I might build to the layout.

by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

In addition, I also bought some wooden letters from the craft store (I think they are supposed to be used in papercraft or something), and some 11/0 Miyuki Seed Beads (used for beading/jewellery making).

The letters are going to be used for rooftop signs and such like, and the seed beads were an inspired idea by David Popp on Model Railroader Video plus - use them to represent HO scale cullet - broken bottles from a recycling plant. They look like they'll make some really convincing freight car loads, and they are about a dollar fifty for a tube - cheap as you like!

by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

I wasted no time in getting use from the wooden letters by adding a company sign to the front of the unloading shed:

by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

Finally, I managed a part of the roof for the large background building:

by Dan Beresford, on Flickr
by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

Today I'll not have much time to work on the layout, but I'm hoping I can at least make a fire escape/access gantry to go on the front of the background building. Photos later if I manage it.


That said, I have done/am doing a little shopping for the layout, and have ordered 3 DCC decoders to get my RS3 and GP9 ready for use at Mansfield show next month (and a spare left over for whatever loco I inevitably purchase at the show - last year it was a Kato motored Stewart Hobbies U25b).

I've also added to the freight stock for the layout, ordering a pair of 2-bay cement hoppers, a pair of 3-bay hoppers, and am bidding on a collection of 6 Athearn Blue Box freight cars on ebay - we'll see if I actually win them later this week.