T3 wagon

Every railroad needs a lot of rolling stock. The typical norwegian railroad cars used in the 50's and 60's has to be built from brass kits so it will be a lot of work (read: fun) to get a decent amount of them on the Grimstad Line. Here is the first one I've built. It's a type T3 from Scandinavian Miniatures. Now it's complete with decals and weathering. I'm just waiting for some flat clear paint to arrive. The chains are Weinert 9318.

Grimstad's second outing

Some of my regular blog-readers might already have realized that the Grimstad Line layout consist of both a fixed part and a sectioned part, the station area in Grimstad, with FREMO-module standard. That meens that I can take these sections with me to various FREMO-meets both in- and out of the country. This is very interesting as the station here sees action it normally doesn't see at home, and I get to test it thoroughly before laying down ballast. It's also very rewarding to experience other modelers "playing" with my modules, and to see high levels of traffic on them.

A couple of weeks ago, a large FREMO-meeting was held in the neighbouring town of Kristiansand. It was a modern era meet, so modern rolling stock could be seen at Grimstad for a change. Everything went smoothely so now I really need to get going on the ballasting and painting of tracks. I will soon post more pictures from the meet on our local club website : arendalmjklubb.blogspot.com


The short line down to Grimstad was in an adjacent room to the main part of the layout. Here a NSB Di5 with a local freight is waiting for the express to pass.

Grimstad in the distance. That's me lurking around on the left, and Truls Slevigen as station master on the right.

The only scenicked part of Grimstad is acutally outside the station itself. It's a small module I've made with a signal that's controlled from Grimstad.

Not much scenery yet, but one can already get a feel for how the overall look will be.

Time for scenery again

There's nothing like a little pressure to get things going. With a Fremo-meet coming up in Kristiansand I thought I'd at least try to make my Grimstad modules look like something more than plywood painted green.

Here the basic landscape contours are in place, and the platforms are beginning to take shape.

Crew Lounge - part 2

And here my lounge area is finshed. Not the biggest or fanciest I guess, but it should make a nice area to retreat to for the crew after a strenous work-day at the Grimstad Line :)

Crew lounge - part one

My main goal with my layout is to be able to invite good friends around for realistic operating sessions. As the Grimstad line is a small and quiet short line not all of the crew members will be active all the time. Therefore I've thought about a way to create a nice place for crew members and visitors to sit down, and a place to put magazines and coffee cups. We've all seen pictures in Model Railroader of large "crew lounges" with comfortable couches and a large table with magazines and such. I have no room for this in my room, but I intend to use the space I have. Here are some pictures from the construction of a small fold-down table I've constructed.

We've had 25-26 degrees the last few days, so it's a good idea to take the messy work outside. An old table top I had lying around is cut apart.

And here the table is in place. Because of the door behind me I had to make it foldable...

... so it can hang down out of the way when it is not in use. Next project is to paint this table, the doors and hang up some nice pictures and railroad related signs :)

Freight depot

I've decided to start working at the area around the station in Grimstad. After all this will be the area of most importance, and a signature scene on my layout, so I'd better get it going now :) A couple of days ago I received a freight depot from the dutch company Artitec (the yellowish building in the center of the picture). This is one of two buildings for the Grimstad Line I don't have to scratchbuild, the other being Rise station. It all looks a bit "toy-like" in this state, but it helps to visualize the whole scene before anything is glued down. Even the track is still not glued down so if I need to make any changes - this is the time.

Changes in concept... and a new loco

The real Grimstad Line was closed down in 1961, but already in 1959/60 there were talks with private interest to take over the line from the Norwegian State railways (NSB). Sadly this never happened. But in my world everything is possible, so I've fast-forwarded my model clock a little bit, and now it's suddenly 1965 in my loft, and the railway is now on private hands as it was in the start from 1907-1912. And it's yet again called Grimstad-Frolandsbanen (GFB). This opens up a lot of possibilities for me with regards to rolling stock, so until I get enough correct pre 1961 NSB equipment, this will be the story.

This opens for use of this lovely steamer from HobbyTrade, which was owned by the Danish State Railways (DSB). Pure coincidence this loco was in real life taken out of service in Denmark in 1965. So the story goes that it was sold to GFB where it found good use.

I will modify the loco so it looks more norwegian with a different lighting arrangement, and with black paint on the smoke stack. It will also get it's own GFB number.

Trees, trees and more trees

I've started planting some trees now. I think correctly coloured trees in great quantities can really make a layout stand out. So I'm hoping to be able to add hundreds and hundreds.

More scenery III

Whoops! How did this happen? Wasn't the hill only brown two days ago? Well... I got a little inspired. And this is just a very small area that's complete. Let's recap tonights events.

I started out coloring all the rock castings using Woodland Scenics pigment colors. They are great for making good looking rock faces, and it's very easy to get a good result.

I then added som basic greenery by using Woodland Fine Turf in two different shades; blended green and burnt grass.

Then I added some low bushes, tufts and static grass. Starting to look ok now...

And this picture, and the one on the top shows how it looked in the end. Still I haven't added the trees and all the twigs and branches on the ground that comes with the trees.

More scenery II

Now it's about time I get some color on this layout! I started to paint everything a light brownish color, but made sure I avoided the rock castings. It's easy to get tempted to paint the areas where there's gonna be grass eventually a green base color, but a brown color makes it easier to achieve the right look in the end. And after all, the stuff under the grass in real life is not green...

While the paint was wet, I sprinkled on sand I collected from a pile of sand outside my house. Where there are big holes in the foam I put small stones which I picked up from my backyard. At this stage of the scenery construction, there are a lot of useful scenery products to be found right outside your door. And it's free too!

The hillside on the end of the peninsula as it looks now. The next task is to color the rocks with Woodland Scenics pigments, and then multiple layers of greenery.