More benchwork

Today me and Halvor started on the last remaining benchwork for my layout. The station, Rise, will be the link with the Grimstad Line to the line that goes south to Arendal, and north to Nelaug and the rest of the norwegian rail network. Nelaug will be a unscenicked staging yard used only for operating sessions and will be mounted to the left in this picture. The line to Arendal will be represented by a stub track to the right that'll be hidden behind a background or scenic divider.

House - part II

I'm still honing my scratchbuilding skills in preparation for the station building. The house's three walls are now complete. The back will be up against the layout end - hence only three walls.

The little house

The little house I'm building is coming along nicely.

Concentration

I've managed to stay focused since my last post, and have worked at the same section of Grimstad. I'm currently scratchbuilding a small and very typical southern-Norway wooden house. Some grass and flowers have also started to appear.

Making scenery is pretty messy...

This house still exists in Grimstad today, so I've started building this with the help from a few pictures I took the other day.

Grimstad station area

I'm jumping from project to project, and I now have a ridicolus amount of half-finished stuff. But I guess that's the way most of us modelers work. At least that's the way I've come to accept things are. So onto the next project then. The main focal point on my Grimstad Line layout/modules will be the area around the station building, and the station building itself. I've contacted the norwegian railway museum, and I'm hoping they can provide me with pictures of this lovely building.

Overview shot of the area. The track has been spraypainted with Tamiya TS1 Red Brown.

The track in front of the station building ends in a stone wall. There will be a old wooden tie on here to protect the wall from the buffers. The wall has been painted with LifeColor paints.

A T3 wagon visiting :) Next task is is ballasting and painting of the areas around here.

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 :)