For a good few months I've had a picture in my minds eye of a ruined weighbridge hut or gatehouse just beyond the quarry entrance gate. As you are probably aware the quarry itself was an afterthought and only modelled to provide a suitable location for the lever frame.
The two quarry workings are meant to represent those small undertakings which would have served the locality and nothing more, some provided building materials whereas others were a source of limestone for the local kilns. The photo below shows the sort of abandoned working that I had in mind........
You can see such abandoned workings throughout the country and its still possible to come across a ruined building or just traces of their foundations in the ground, the latter inspiring me to see what I could create in model form. I wasn't sure if such a feature would work on the layout so rather than model a building from scratch I cast my eye over the old weighbridge hut which once stood in Penhydd goods yard.
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Prior to viewing this cruel close up I had never noticed the crooked chimney cap but it no longer matters seeing as the whole stack isn't far off falling down. The bushes which are sprouting out of the walls are very small pieces of Seamoss which have been given a light covering of Carr's foliage, the weeds and grasses are tufts of Silflor. The base of the hut will be bedded firmly into the ground and covered in overgrowth so I've made no attempt to clean the lower edges up.
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This is all that is visible from the viewing side of the layout, the poor joint in the bottom right hand corner is hidden from view on the layout, as for the weeds on the chimney stack, well they've been trimmed back a touch. The brickwork was first painted in Railmatch concrete acrylic, most of it being removed with cotton buds to leave just a hint of colour in the mortar courses, dry brushing with Humbrol '113 rust' and '98 chocolate' followed along with a dusting of ash weathering powder.
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The old hut is rapidly disappearing as mother nature reclaims what is hers, the access road is now overgrown and little more than a path, as for the weighbridge, well it was removed and sold off. The surrounding grass is slowly getting higher as more static fibres are applied, I'm currently awaiting a supply of 'dead grass' fibres which will be applied randomly on the higher areas of the ground where there tends to be less moisture. I've used nothing more than a simple puffer bottle to apply the fibres and artist spray mount adhesive to secure them, having tried many different adhesives and techniques I've come to the conclusion that this method works best for me.
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There is a little more of the ruins to see in this view, I had to add some embossed brickwork to the inner walls as the Ratio mouldings are plain inside, unfortunately its not an exact match with the exterior brickwork but thanks to the weeds, bushes and general air of decay the mismatch isn't really noticeable.
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Finally 4678 passes the old quarry site as she heads for the goods yard at Llanbister Road with a train of empty coal wagons bound for the South Wales coal fields.
Well that's one more job ticked off the to do list leaving me with just three little detailing projects and some scenic touch ups.
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| There is still a little work to be done on the quarry faces, once completed the area around the frame will be tidied up and the final track diagram will be installed. |
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| Photo by John Haynes [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
I received a fair amount of good natured banter when the Ratio hut made an appearance on the old layout, even though I had pointed out that it was only a temporary measure. Alas it never got replaced due to the Beeching axe falling on Penhydd, so along with many other relics from the old layout it was carefully stored away for future use on one of the grandsons layouts. However during one of my frequent tidying up sessions I looked at it again and decided to hack it about to produce something different, as for the grandsons, well they are none the wiser and far too young to be reading this!
Prior to viewing this cruel close up I had never noticed the crooked chimney cap but it no longer matters seeing as the whole stack isn't far off falling down. The bushes which are sprouting out of the walls are very small pieces of Seamoss which have been given a light covering of Carr's foliage, the weeds and grasses are tufts of Silflor. The base of the hut will be bedded firmly into the ground and covered in overgrowth so I've made no attempt to clean the lower edges up.
This is all that is visible from the viewing side of the layout, the poor joint in the bottom right hand corner is hidden from view on the layout, as for the weeds on the chimney stack, well they've been trimmed back a touch. The brickwork was first painted in Railmatch concrete acrylic, most of it being removed with cotton buds to leave just a hint of colour in the mortar courses, dry brushing with Humbrol '113 rust' and '98 chocolate' followed along with a dusting of ash weathering powder.
The old hut is rapidly disappearing as mother nature reclaims what is hers, the access road is now overgrown and little more than a path, as for the weighbridge, well it was removed and sold off. The surrounding grass is slowly getting higher as more static fibres are applied, I'm currently awaiting a supply of 'dead grass' fibres which will be applied randomly on the higher areas of the ground where there tends to be less moisture. I've used nothing more than a simple puffer bottle to apply the fibres and artist spray mount adhesive to secure them, having tried many different adhesives and techniques I've come to the conclusion that this method works best for me.
There is a little more of the ruins to see in this view, I had to add some embossed brickwork to the inner walls as the Ratio mouldings are plain inside, unfortunately its not an exact match with the exterior brickwork but thanks to the weeds, bushes and general air of decay the mismatch isn't really noticeable.
Finally 4678 passes the old quarry site as she heads for the goods yard at Llanbister Road with a train of empty coal wagons bound for the South Wales coal fields.
Well that's one more job ticked off the to do list leaving me with just three little detailing projects and some scenic touch ups.