Coalbridge Street: If in grout…

Perhaps a contender for worst pun on the blog, but if in doubt, grout would be a good scenic mnemonic…

Coalbridge Street is late 1970s early 1970s New England. It’s like the last days of the Claremont Concord but isn’t, perhaps even another part of the Hilton and Mears story in time. Where Tom Nelligan’s book on Shortlines is the inspiration Prince Street is my instruction. Encouraged back to the edge of my comfort zone I’m trying to recreate the feel of light weight track buried to the ties in earth. 

I’m using Peco Code 75 in the main, but the two spurs have Atlas Code 55 rail threaded into the Peco bases… I wish I had done this everywhere as it looks sublime, but ‘oh well’. The sleeper base is quite thick so the ground level is built up to this, right up to the sleepers ends in cork. The sleepers and rails are painted in a palette of Humbrol enamels before adding Woodland Scenics fine ballast (grey blend in this case) and securing with scenic cement.

Non-sanded tile grout. Inconveniently only supplied in small bags that for our purposes are a life times supply! I have a brown shade and have used it on Beaverbrook extensively, to blend the road edge into the ballast, through experimentation I’ve found that whilst it darkens when wet, it returns to the dry shade. My approach is to sprinkle this in liberally, push it around with a brush, tamp it with a finger, clean the rails and sleepers a touch with a brush and then apply water with a mist bottle, the grout flows into the crevices of the ballast and becomes just like the dirt we see in reality. This is only a first fix, as the water doesn’t seem to bind the grout in this way - so scenic cement is later applied. 

The visual result though is fantastic, and just as I envisaged. You can moderate the effect by adding more on top, and I intend to liberally apply static grass in time, so the right if way is barely discernible from the yard surface. These small scenic layouts are not only a great distraction from larger projects, nor just a place to scratch a particular prototype itch - they’re also a great and relatively low risk place to experiment  and to sharpen our skills. As if you needed another reason to start one! Surely there is a shelf or space for some somewhere in your home, what will you build? Until next time, more soon…

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