The Summer Progress Report

The tunnel entrance at Penwith Junction was the first area of the layout to get the scenic treatment! The broad cutting slopes appear so typical of Brunel’s designs and quite visually effective I think.

Penwith Junction portal with a line-side hut build into the
cutting inside a retaining wall alcove.

Penwith Junction with a repainted Scenecraft
Signal Box. Signals & fencing are Ratio product.

Continuing around this end of the layout the small road bridge was clad in Slaters plasticard stone, and decorated the same as the tunnel portal. The cutting for the branch line had some rocks crafted from foam and attached with expanding foam. The entire plastered area was painted with a mid brown acrylic paint. The grasses were then added. Most of the area had Heki wild-grass matting cut into differing shapes and teased to fit around the landscape, glued on with PVA glue.

The cutting road bridge with stone walls and signal for the
Main Line to the left, Bay road to the centre and sidings
to the right. Note the strainer cable across the track.

The branch cutting that leads
to the viaduct

It was always intended to have an abandoned mine in the corner. Some more internet research resulted in a number of images of the skeletons of pump houses still standing around Cornwall. It was noted that Cornish smoke stacks were rounded whereas Welsh stacks were mostly Square. I set to work on scratchbuilding the building from thick Balsawood and clad with embossed stone plasticard. The stack was made from a cardboard roll, sliced down one side with a tapered strip removed. When the gap is then closed up by slightly twisting the tube, a tapered tube results.  With the join glued and sheathed with stone embossed plasticard suitably aligned to give the desired effect.

Pump house clad with stone, quoining added
and putty applied.

Pump house constructed
from Balsawood.

The corners of the building were then dressed with quoining cut from paper. All gaps and edges were then wiped with modelling putty using my finger tip. Once dry the model was painted with grey primer enamel. Then a thin wash of cream enamel, a dry brushing of brown highlighted the stone work. Finally the whole building was then dusted with weathering powders to age the surfaces. On the north side of the build some green was added to represent moss. Red brick papar then covers the upper cap and rim.

Completed stone work with
weathering - ready
for the red brick top to be applied
with strips of brick paper
three courses at a time.

The old tin mine site with settling tank
and out buildings. The yellow and
violet heather compliments the scene.
The access road is overgrown leading
down from the road bridge.

The viaduct has had some attention too. Flywire was arranged around the bottom of the piers and profiled with lumps of screwed up newspaper. This area is currently under construction. While the viaduct is the only railway object on this part of the layout, its demand on the scenery is huge, and integrating it into the scene is quite challenging to say the least!