From when my Parents gave me my first train set for a Christmas present as a child, I have had an interest in model railways. I originally started in "OO" gauge, but have also built in "N" and "O" gauge. One layout I built was my exhibition layout "Holmehurst" which was in "O" gauge, and I exhibited it around the country. Photos of it can be seen by following this link.

I inherited some "OO9" rolling stock from my late father, including a loco I built from a white metal kit for him, and ever since living on our working narrowboat Hadar I have been thinking about building a "OO9" layout.

For those who do not know, "OO9" is "OO" scale, which is 4mm to 1ft, but the track and rolling stock are narrow gauge, equivalent to 2ft gauge in real life. Modelling-wise this means that I can used standard "OO" scale buildings, people, scenery etc. of which there is a far greater range of ready built items and kits to choose from, but it has the advantage that the reduced size of the track and rolling stock means that curves can be tighter than for standard gauge, without losing a realistic look within a restricted layout size.

I had thought about building a layout in our garden alongside our mooring at the Saltisford Canal Centre, but after much thought decided that this would not be practical. However I built a small layout (now dismantled) which sat on the shelf above the display cabinet, in our saloon, which houses my "O" gauge rolling stock. Having finished it, my wife Jo suggested that when we stop selling coal I could build a layout in the hold. As we stopped selling coal at the end of 2016.

This is a full record of the building of the original layout, and having moved into a flat in Warwick and sold our narrowboat, this will now cover the building of the New Hadarford in our flat.

Please feel free to leave comments, I am always interested in suggestions or questions.

Thursday, 17 September 2026

Gardens for 2 Thatched Cottages, Gates, and Thatched Cottages Fixed in Place

 With the road finished and the pavements laid I set about working on the gardens for the 2 thatched cottages at the front of the layout and made a set of gates for the driveway to the 2 large thatched houses.

Polyfilla applied to change the level of the pavement base and the baseboard

Once the Polyfilla had dried I smoothed it down with glasspaper

Then I painted the area brown

Stone wall between what will be the 2 gardens and the railway track

Having temporarily place the 2 cottages on, I noticed I was missing a small section of stone wall, now rectifed

Overall view of the gardens and the 2 cottages

I glued 2 gates together, constructed the third smaller pedestrian gate from a large one, then glued all 3 together

However, I have a dilemma, there are 2 different orientations I can place them in, straight across the entrance to the driveway or at an angle?

Straight across

At an angle

Bit of night work this evening has seen the creation of crazy paving around the 2 thatched cottages cut to size, glued in place, then the 2 cottages glued down and a garage between them glued in place.


Final piece of stone wall to fill in the gap between the existing wall and the cottage


Keith
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)