Pont-y-dulais: Bridge building...

The next step on Pont-y-dulais is the scenery, but getting the order right on this micro has taken a little bit of thinking due to the slightly odd order of adding the back scene first...

I decided that before I covered started on the greenery, I needed to build and partially finish the over bridge. The inspiration behind this was the much wider bridge at Mountain Ash at the yard throat. That bridge has stone and brick abutments, although inverted to my model. I used Wills coarse stone to build the sides, before cutting down an old Peco girder for the top. The deck was added on top of some I beam girders (you can't see them but I know they're there!) and the parapets added in brick, as if they've been modified or rebuilt at some point. 

Because the bridge crosses at an odd angle, so hide the fact the tracks don't go anywhere, you can see the road on the deck when viewing, so I also modelled the back of the parapets, the top of the stone walls and the pavement. The latter is 3mm which styrene, carved with a knife for the curb stones. The bridge deck has a plain piece, which will be finished slightly differently. The wall is topped with more stones, cut from styrene sheet. The whole lot was painted with primer to tie the finish together...

On the layout it looked the part, and I was happy that it served it's purpose well. It's perhaps a little over built, but in my head the road is a main road, so a heavy bridge would be justified.

The whole layout here shown in place, see how it fits neatly above the workbench, showing you always can find space for a new project...

The primer dried quickly so I sprayed it with a black rattle can before adding some colour. The stone was painted in Humbrol 64, with some individual stones mixed from 64 and 72. The brickwork was Matt 70. Once dry, I used Matt 24 to watered down to add the brick mortar, before dry brushing the bricks again with 70. The stone work has a wash of 98 added, and then the girder was painted a dark grey Matt 245.

Back on the layout I added some plaster bandage over the polystyrene ceiling tiles, and once this had gone hard dug out some old trees salavaged from my child hood layout - this stash is seriously depleted now, however these ones were white metal 'kits' from Woodland Scenics and I've always felt them a little too bright green for Purbeck, however a wet NCB valley seem more at home. They will be chopped around to suit I think, and obviously only one part of the scenic finish. However, I posed a few other items not he layout to see how things looked. The back of the shed will be rebuilt in breeze block, like Pontardulais, and that's the next structure to be tackled.

The low green back scene blends well behind the green Janus, perhaps too green, we'll see once the ground is much darker with ashes and ballast. The pallette of colours on this layout is a step away from my usual sun bleached summers day, I'm aiming for a bridge but overcast day in the spring in a Welsh valley...

The bridge in place, the taller tree will be required here to hide a small water mark on the back scene, even though I was careful, there was one small accident when applying the bandage. The view down the layout from the bridge is looking promising. The bushes will be up on the embankment, rather than on the track!

So things are looking promising - and I can see what needs doing next now - but the limitations of the physical constraints of the layouts storage location will mean that a more serious layout is needed to scratch the standard gauge itch. Whether this takes the form of another industrial, or a GWR branch, or the long dreamt of Bala branch remains to be seen. For now Pont-y-dulais has served it's purpose, and continues to do so, and hopefully goes to get you looking bout your home for spaces to build a layout! More soon...