OK, so it's not full size...
its plastic and its 1/64th scale
so don't say I didn't warn you!
Story: This started life as a model railway my dad was building. it's 8x4' and pretty immoveable, so it stayed when he left. After a year or two, I started using it to take pics of the diecast I was selling, and as I'm mostly 1/64 and the houses were 1/72 it was an approximate match.
Then last year I populated the village. I changed the road layout a bit, and took all the railway appendages away and left one track to one side. I bought another couple of houses and made my dad build them as I'm far too lazy and busy lol.
Fast forward to this year and now that I have put everything where it should be, I thought I should probably nail it all down. So I bought some tarmac/gravel/grass scatter and nailed the couple of railway lines down one side (inoperative) to keep the theme as a continuation/evolution of the original layout.
Unsatisfied with that I started planning more things. Things I'd already had in my head but not had the buildings for: to that effect, my dad is scratch-building me a pair of large workshop garages for two businesses operating in my 'village'.
And then I went mad with the details. Greenhouse, dogs, trees, fences, including scale wire mesh fence, traffic lights...
The hardest part was the people. 1/72 railway figures are way, way too small and the next scale up, O gauge, is 1/43 so far too big. I eventually tracked some whitemetal civilians made as "collateral damage" for futuristic warhammer type games!
put it this way: they came from what I believe is the ONLY company still alive in the UK that do S scale (1/64th) figures of any sort.
some pics, taken tonight of current state of affairs...
top of the table, blank space waiting on tuning garage* to be built.
supermarket and parking area just next to tuners
centre of town, village green which will have fruit trees and childrens play area, and shows rear view of rally-building garage* area, waiting on proper workshop build.
this corner will get built up some more. underneath all that stuff it's raised at that side, there is a posh tarmac lane to an imaginary hotel and there will be old tower ruins behind the hedging.
bottom of board, shows corner of racetrack*, and the diner which was an old fashioned cafe kit, but will have some alterations (one coming up!)
up the main thoroughfare street, where most of the houses also are.
front view of the rally building business - a small public reception/office that even has some quality merchandise there as examples!
tonight I started the wiring job. most of the houses will be lit at night. this is a phosphor coated element that lights when power is applied (2AAA). It is intensely awesome; I had to import it from the USA and it was very, very expensive. I saw a similar but bigger motel one at a recent railway exhibition, and got it from the same place but they had no bigger stand-alone ones like I wanted really, but this will do!
Will be highlighted with spotlights (leds) around the diner. 50's FTW.
*tuning garage, rally builders, racetrack, all have local to me similar concepts, so although each is of my creation, nobody can say 'that wouldn't be there', because I can show you a real one that is. even the odd layout of the village can be backed up. authenticity is nice if you can prove it
its plastic and its 1/64th scale
so don't say I didn't warn you!
Story: This started life as a model railway my dad was building. it's 8x4' and pretty immoveable, so it stayed when he left. After a year or two, I started using it to take pics of the diecast I was selling, and as I'm mostly 1/64 and the houses were 1/72 it was an approximate match.
Then last year I populated the village. I changed the road layout a bit, and took all the railway appendages away and left one track to one side. I bought another couple of houses and made my dad build them as I'm far too lazy and busy lol.
Fast forward to this year and now that I have put everything where it should be, I thought I should probably nail it all down. So I bought some tarmac/gravel/grass scatter and nailed the couple of railway lines down one side (inoperative) to keep the theme as a continuation/evolution of the original layout.
Unsatisfied with that I started planning more things. Things I'd already had in my head but not had the buildings for: to that effect, my dad is scratch-building me a pair of large workshop garages for two businesses operating in my 'village'.
And then I went mad with the details. Greenhouse, dogs, trees, fences, including scale wire mesh fence, traffic lights...
The hardest part was the people. 1/72 railway figures are way, way too small and the next scale up, O gauge, is 1/43 so far too big. I eventually tracked some whitemetal civilians made as "collateral damage" for futuristic warhammer type games!
put it this way: they came from what I believe is the ONLY company still alive in the UK that do S scale (1/64th) figures of any sort.
some pics, taken tonight of current state of affairs...
top of the table, blank space waiting on tuning garage* to be built.
supermarket and parking area just next to tuners
centre of town, village green which will have fruit trees and childrens play area, and shows rear view of rally-building garage* area, waiting on proper workshop build.
this corner will get built up some more. underneath all that stuff it's raised at that side, there is a posh tarmac lane to an imaginary hotel and there will be old tower ruins behind the hedging.
bottom of board, shows corner of racetrack*, and the diner which was an old fashioned cafe kit, but will have some alterations (one coming up!)
up the main thoroughfare street, where most of the houses also are.
front view of the rally building business - a small public reception/office that even has some quality merchandise there as examples!
tonight I started the wiring job. most of the houses will be lit at night. this is a phosphor coated element that lights when power is applied (2AAA). It is intensely awesome; I had to import it from the USA and it was very, very expensive. I saw a similar but bigger motel one at a recent railway exhibition, and got it from the same place but they had no bigger stand-alone ones like I wanted really, but this will do!
Will be highlighted with spotlights (leds) around the diner. 50's FTW.
*tuning garage, rally builders, racetrack, all have local to me similar concepts, so although each is of my creation, nobody can say 'that wouldn't be there', because I can show you a real one that is. even the odd layout of the village can be backed up. authenticity is nice if you can prove it
