Sunday 5 December 2021

Port Eden; a (fictional) seaside miniature railway.


Over the summer I (Ben) ended up getting involved with a model railway competition being run by Hornby, to build a summer/holiday-themed layout.  They set a trackplan and size to work to, and left the rest up to the entrants.

I'll post something bigger and more detailed on the build on the Model Making Blog in March 2022, when the layout is getting a feature in the magazine British Railway Modelling.  For now, because it's got a mini-feature on the World of Railways Virtual Exhibition this weekend, a mini-post here on the blog on the layout...


After umming and ah-ing a bit looking for an idea at the start of the project, I returned to a concept I'd used for a couple of projects for previous competitions; a fictional seaside miniature railway at an equally fictional resort somewhere in Cumbria in the 1990's; Port Eden.  The above was the second iteration of the project (the first was in a model project at Uni).  The above one was an 8-inch square diorama, modelled in 1/32nd scale.


The concept got a second run for another competition build, over the winter of 2020/2021, this time in 1/10th scale.


So having returned to the idea, I worked in G scale but with Hornby 00 track and trains to represent the miniature railway, and fulfil the rule of the competition to use Hornby rolling stock.


All the trains were rebuilt, and the figures and details were cobbled together from Playmobil, eBay purchases, you name it.  It was done very much on a budget, and in a bit of a rush.


Photographing the layout was a bit of a nightmare; I'd wanted to shoot the pics outdoors for natural light, but I was having to isolate with Covid, and it was manky weather outdoors anyway.


It had a mini feature in the exhibition, and as I said, something rather more detailed will go up on the other blog next Spring.  I'll also post something on some of the research trips to get visual inspiration for the model-making.

 

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