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Masterton model train show

This weekend was the Masterton Model Train show, something I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Rachel and I went along mid-Saturday to have a look around.

There were a wide variety of railways on show, including a pleasingly strong showing of N scale.

The Wairarapa Railway Modellers had both their club layouts there: an HO folded loop that had several trains running at once through a nice variety of scenery.

Motorised Dandruff were there with some very fine hand laid track. I was particularly interested...

An engaging build, part 2

Continued from part 1...

The Church

Raparapa is a very cozy little town, so a small village church seemed appropriate. I based the model on a real church here in Masterton, opposite the SPCA where our kitten came from.

Working from Google Street View, I sat down with a pencil and paper and sketched up full size elevations of the building to check proportions and sizes.

I then quick quickly cut out all the walls, found some window castings, and set to work:

An engaging build, part 1

Fraternal Republic of Utraijnia recently take great pride in celebrating royal engagement of Prince Mikhail Douglaski and Rahela Annushka. Special steam train make maiden voyage to glorious fan fare!

Here we see the steam train special posed at the station as the royal party disembark. Many Utrainian residents drove considerable distances to attend the celebrations, for the steam train was a very notable event; not only was it the royal-proposal-train, but it was also the first train to ever run on the real (model) Utrainia.

The new terminus of Utrainia is now Raparapa, which is a portmanteau of "Wairarapa" and Rachel's initials, R A P. I built the village of Raparapa in order to propose to Rachel, a task it achieved most splendidly!

I tried to remem...

Installing the rockfall shelter portals

The rockfall shelter is continuing nicely. Yesterday I spent some time cutting slots in the rock to accept the end walls of the shelter. This involved lots of slow sawing with a broken hacksaw blade, and lots of plaster dust everywhere.

Today I did a test fit and all went well. So I mixed up some "super concrete" which is pre-mixed patching plaster and PVA. The PVA makes it stickier and easier more pliable. I filled the slots with a generous helping and then pushed the portals into it. Hopefully when the plaster dries the PVA will help hold the portals in place. Any gaps I carefully filled with my "super concrete", and I added a good thing seam to the inside edges.

A machinist's square helped keep things nice and square, and a selection of overly large wagons helped check clearances.

Rockfall shelter progress

Some more progress on my canyon scene. The rockfall shelter is the focus of my attention this time. During the week I used some premixed plaster to make little foundations for each leg of the shelter. With the shelter roughly in place it was time to make some ends for it. I made a rough pattern out of cardboard and then made a matching mold. Poured some plaster, strengthened it with some balsa splints, and clamped it between two plates of glass.

I then did the opposite for the other end of the shelter.

While studying some photos of the prototype I noticed how uniformly coloured the scenery was, so while waiting for that to dry I started working on blending the rocks into the rest of the scenery. I'm trailing using a medium-gray base coat on the scenery that I'm dry bushing...

Ballasting the canyon scene

Progress continues on the canyon scene. Today the hard working Utrainian railway crews laid down not one, but two, main lines.

The tracks have been carefully curved and aligned, and clearance tests done to make sure even the largest Utrainian trans will be able to pass with ease.

A quick test with the start of the rockfall shelter. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished scene, I think there are going to be a great angles.

On a roll, the hard working Utrainia engineers added some superelevation to the curves. Superelevation is where the outside edge of the curve is sli...