Mollington Road: Ground work...

I've made a concerted effort to stay focussed for once, and rather than head off down another layout plan, I'm going to finish Mollington Road, as for now, I genuinely can't envisage having space for anything OO that's larger...

So with this in mind, and with some inspiration from other modellers I dug it out of the under stairs cupboard and reviewed where things had been left. Last time it was out I'd mocked up where I planned roads and made a start on some structures.

The current state is shown here, although I'd not placed the other buildings. I decided I needed to bring the level of the road area up to the rail height if possible. I found a piece of suitable MDF and cut this to fit, glued and sealed the gaps with acrylic filler. Once dry I mixed up some Woodland Scenics 'smooth it' in quite a watery consistency. Sealing the edge with some tape, I then poured it carefully over and between the rails, spreading it gently with a knife and leaving it to dry.

Smooth it is basically plaster, and it's nicer to work with than interior filler where you need a smooth road surface, I'd definitely recommend it in this use - although a large area you might be better just buying bog standard plaster of paris.

It does dry with a rounded edge, but this is easily smoothed off...
The clearance or flanges on the crossing was achieved with some plastic check rails set below the level of the metal rails. The rails in the yard won't have as much train traffic so I made a tool from styrene that runs along the rails and cuts a groove in the 'green' plaster - when it's set but not dry - allowing clearance for rolling stock flanges. This looks neater than an over width check rail.

Once dry enough to handle I marked out the roads in pencil and fabricated some curb stones out of wood, before filling behind these with interior filler. I also added styrene tube as a culvert and smoothed the edges of this with more interior filler. This is now all drying, and I've placed some stock and buildings to check the angles - excuse the radiator back-scene!

These feature my Dad's old Mainline 03 and a Cambrian Herring I also put together this weekend...

Some of these are very effective despite the small scene, and show the advantage of a micro layout. I can't wait to add a proper road surface and begin to add some ground cover. One final shot showing the state of place from a birds eye view, which shows how that despite it being still all the wrong colours, by adding defined road area and curbs, the layout has gone from being some track on a  board and the other half seeming really bare, to an overall scene.

More soon...