Construction of the buildings
Buildings are an ongoing project. The first ones were stone faced. Flat-faced pieces of gravel selected from the front path were laid out on pre shaped boards covered with double sided tape and then coated with a sand cement mixture. After assembling the panels into the building further concrete applied to the inside of the building. When cured the panels removed and the face pointed with sand and cement worked in with an old toothbrush. Stone walls have been constructed using the same technique. More details can be found on the Garden Railway Realism Wiki.
The roofs are slated with slate cut from waste from the real quarry that the railway is supposed to serve. The slate cut into blocks of the required size and split with a a sharp blow with a hammer on the back of a Stanley knife blade. Very therapeutic but it soon becomes obvious why the quarry tips are so big!
Some recent buildings have been fabricated from UPVC facia board, covered in plastic sheet. One uses corrugated sheet as a Colonel Stevens style of construction the other uses plain sheet with vertical battens to represent timber cladding.
Some recent buildings have been fabricated from UPVC facia board, covered in plastic sheet. One uses corrugated sheet as a Colonel Stevens style of construction the other uses plain sheet with vertical battens to represent timber cladding.
Lighting has been installed in the last two buildings together with some electric powered gas lamps on Pont Llyfni and Tanyralt stations, the fist phase of lighting the whole railway.
A slate goods shed for Pontllyfni will be the next to tackle and then there is the new sawmill with working saw and the drum house for the top of the quarry incline, which still need finishing!.
Construction is an ongoing process getting slower as maintenance and running trains intervenes.