Canal Street Wharf: greening up...

This morning I broke out the scenic materials and now the new layout has all the basic ground cover complete...

This is a mixture of ground foam and static grass, with deliberatly subdued character, no bright green at all! I started with 20 year old Woodland Scenics, as I mentioned yesterday. Spread on some basing glue from Peco, add yellow grass course turf on the ballast shoulder and slopes, and then earth blend fine turf all around, tamped down. A touch of yellow grass fine turf sprinkled on the transition and I used burnt grass, which is greener, for the lower sections of grass behind the shed, and on the banks of the brook. The track was masked and then a spray of Peco layering spray applied to set it, and blow off any loose bits. The next step was to apply some static grass, using the layering spray. I started with Mininatur 4.5mm autumn fibres with some Peco 2mm winter fibres. I then added some 6mm Mininatur 6mm winter fibres in places, built up slowly with applications of layering spray to set it in place.

So what next? Well I can't put it off any longer, I need an office building, a bridge and some walls built, so that's the next job. Then I can paint the buildings in one sitting, before planting them. The canal retaining wall will need attention then, some retaining rails, a drain pipe and a few odd details. Then at this stage I can then begin to add the finer scenic ground cover, grass in cracks between the rails etc before adding trees and bushes.

I've been reading the Wild Swan book on the Wantage tramway, another 'inspiration' behind this sort of light railway, and I'm going to base the office on the micro layout on the one in the lower yard at Wantage.

Finally a few shots of the texture I've managed to achieve so far, I'm really happy with the variation in colour and texture of the grass, and I love the speed in which you can work on a micro layout. Although this is my own Christmas project, I'm happy to build micro layouts on commission, so you can get in touch if you'd like to discuss a project.

In the meantime, more soon...