The loco yard was cluttered up with various items including some nice Platelayer's tools from Back 2 Bay 6, sadly no longer with us, plus oil drums (Modeltown) and some real coal. A water crane from GRS was installed between the tracks and some Modeltown telegraph poles were planted. 

Finally, the edge of the baseboard and the legs that support the workbench above the station were given a couple of coats of matt black in order to tone down their appearance.

With the exception of making a small diorama a couple of years ago, this is the first bit of indoor scenic modelling I have done since the early 1980s, and that was in the smaller scales. The finished result is not to exhibition standards but I think it conveys enough atmosphere to make it fairly convincing. I can now say that the railway is complete, but not finished, another possible extension is being planned for development in 2017/18!

At the West end of the station the line disappears through a hole in the workshop wall, supposedly leading to the goods yard, and the connection and exchange siding with the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway. In order to disguise this hole, I have built a watermill on one side of the line and a low relief goods shed on the other side.

The goods shed is made from two pieces of OSB sheet cut to the profile of the gable end of the building. The outermost piece has had apertures cut to accept a window and double doors. The window and the pair of doors were salvaged from the ruined Culdaff loco shed.

The back piece was painted black in the areas that would be behind the window and door apertures, the window was then glued in place behind the front sheet, and the two pieces of OSB, plus a further spacing strip on the rear of the right side were screwed together; the spacing strip was used to enable the shed to be angled away from the backscene so that it is more or less at right angles to the track.

The walls were clad with dressed stone effect plastic sheet and the roof with embossed slate sheet. Bargeboards made from plastic sheet, and guttering were then added. The stonework, roof and bargeboards were painted and finally, the doors were glued in place.

The two road locomotive shed and works at Carndonagh is five feet six inches long (1.65m, 110 scale feet) but only the front ten scale feet is modelled; the shed lines run off stage through the backscene and under a raised storage area in the real world workshop. The modelled part of the loco shed is therefore only a short low relief structure.

The basic framework was made from Filcris recycled plastic topped with gables made from offcuts of OSB timber. A false roof was added made from some old plastic signs, the interior wall that is visible from the normal viewing angle was detailed with embossed planked Plastikard and Evergreen plastic strip framing. A window and roof vent were salvaged from the now ruined single road shed at Culdaff.

The exterior was clad in scale size sheets of corrugated aluminium and then painted matt black, the interior was painted in a dull brown shade. A set of fire irons were hung on the framing inside the entrance. The shed should really have some doors but I think these will get in the way in what is a confined space, maybe one day I will add some.

The completed water tower is now on site, along with the hut and urinal.

I have set myself the task of completing the indoor section of the railway this winter. The indoor track was laid in early 2014, but there is a lot of scenic work to be done.
First, I fettled the warped walls and roof of the station building by heating them with a hairdryer and strengthening with off cuts of wood once the parts were straightened out.
The station platform has been given a coat of dark grey paint, but this will also be surfaced with fine grit in due course, the platform has been edged with individual slabs cut from Plastikard.
Stone walling from Modeltown, and a gate for the mill yard have been painted and glued in place along the back of the station area.
A platelayer's hut and a urinal for the staff have been made from Modeltown kits. I added a back wall, interior lining, a tiled floor and plumbing to the urinal. The hut roof has received some rust treatment since the photo below was taken.
There is a brick buttress half way along the workshop wall and I am in the process of building a large low relief water tower to disguise this feature. The base structure of the water tower was made from 6mm MDF, this was overlaid with stone effect plastic sheet for the tower and plain Plastikard with plastic strip detailing on the tank section.

While I was working away on the railway extension this year, I was well aware that the woodwork retaining the front of the original layout was in need of replacement after 7 years in place. The woodwork was rotten in several places and the infill of earth and stones was leaking out, leaving the concrete base of the station as an overhanging ledge with no support along the front edge.
I had various ideas of how I would carry out repairs, including building a brick or stone wall or making a retaining wall from interlocking wood blocks. In the end I went for a cheap and quick solution, a repeat of the original method using fixed log roll panels and infilling behind, but this time infilling with concrete rather than earth or stones.

In order to get the panels as near vertical as possible, they had to be  positioned further from the front of the layout, leaving a gap between the top of the panels and the edge of the concrete; this gap also allowed for the concrete to be poured in to the void behind. First of all the narrow slab path had to be moved a short distance away from the layout, and the panels driven in immediately behind it.

In order to facilitate pouring the concrete  through the gap, the adjacent station platform on needed to be removed. Post fixing concrete was then poured dry in to the void until it was filled up to track level, eight and a half bags of concrete were needed to achieve this. The dry concrete was then well watered so that it would harden. Heavy rain the following day ensured that all the concrete was watered.

Since building the extension, the second platform at Culdaff was no longer required, it was put in to add operational flexibility to the old oval layout with one station; I decided not to reinstate it. The concrete surface beside the Culdaff passing loop represents a section of the public road; the only piece of road modelled on this roadside tramway!

The removal of the platform also resulted in a bit of signalling rationalisation, the starter signal on the removed platform was also dispensed with and the starter on the main platform was relocated to a position nearer to the signal cabin, controlling both lines.

The outdoor section of the extended railway is now complete, following the installation of the cattle dock and station fencing at Malin station. There is one more structure to be built for the outdoor section but it is a non-railway building, a watermill, to be located adjacent to the pond at Culdaff; more of that in a future post.
The cattle dock is made from a GRS kit, it is a little under scale so I have chosen some smaller members of the cattle herd to occupy it. The fencing is supposed to be painted for outdoor use but I have decided to let the steel wire rails of the fence rust nicely. Once the rust has reached an appropriate level, the cattle dock will be taken inside between running sessions. I have designed the dock so that the top section is removable, the base is made from the same recycled plastic used for the track bed; this has been screwed to the station baseboard. The Malin station yard is relatively small and it was quite a squeeze to fit the dock in. I had to cut a section out of the station platform to accommodate it.

Malin station building has been completed. The addition of a bench, fencing and a cattle dock are required to complete the station.
The station was to be named Malin Road, supposedly being some distance from the village, but the name board would be too long for its intended position on the side wall of the gents lavatory; so Malin it is.

Since building the extension, the single road loco shed at Culdaff has been made redundant; a two road loco shed and workshops will be located at Carndonagh. I also wanted to improve the goods facilities at Culdaff by utilising the loco shed siding. My initial plan was to remove the loco shed and use some of its parts in the new shed at Carn; however, the building is cemented in and removing it would require a rebuild of the area including relaying the track. I had a flash of inspiration and decided to 'ruin' the loco shed. 

The roof, windows and doors were removed; the doors and smoke vent have been saved for use elsewhere. A black rattle can of spray paint was then used to smoke stain the masonry above the windows and door apertures.

The story goes that in the early days of the line, a loco shed was provided at Culdaff to stable a loco overnight for the first up train of the following day. During the 'Troubles' in the early 1920s, the shed was burned down, with a loco inside. At the end of hostilities, a change of the working timetable meant that the shed was no longer required and so it was never rebuilt. The siding has now been equipped with a hand operated crane and facilities for unloading mineral traffic.  The ruined loco shed now functions as a rather large buffer stop; the corners of the ruin are also used to store various items of clutter.

The third, and final, Culdaff station building is now complete! I was just waiting to add the door signs, which arrived today.

I have also made a start on Malin Road station building, another Modeltown product.
At the time of ordering the kit, Modeltown were in the process of re-tooling and updating this kit; they kindly included the prototype for the new lavatory extension in my order. The prototype does not include a roof, I will keep the weather off the customers with some corrugated sheet. In the production version, the seated accommodation is roofed over by a water tank.

The original unroofed urinal was also included in the kit, and I will use this to provide facilities for the loco crews and workshop staff at Carndonagh.

It has been 10 months since my last blog, but I have not been idle. During the winter of 2013/14 I was busy fitting out my workshop, a brick built garage, this included re-wiring, building a workbench and baseboards and laying track for the indoor section of the extended railway.
In April work started on the outdoor section of the railway, with all track laid by 16th June. I am in the process of building a page on the construction of the new line and I hope to publish this shortly.

The Culdaff station building featured in my last post has not stood up well to life outdoors, with serious warping of the walls and roof in the warm south coast sunshine. This building has been relocated to the indoor section and will become the main station building for the line's headquarters at Carndonagh. Hopefully judicious use of a hair dryer will help remedy the warping.

The replacement Culdaff building is a modified Modeltown kit. I have given the rather bland front wall a glazed set of double doors. These were from a set of Piko doors and windows which were in my bits box. My aim was to give the impression of the glazed and panelled frontage found on many waiting rooms in Ireland, particularly on the Great Northern, County Donegal and Clogher Valley railways.

The chimney provided in the kit was rather thin and spindly, so I have cut this down so that it looks more solid and squat. Modeltown have since modified the chimney in their re-vamped version of the kit.


The original Aughaclay station has found a new use as a halt halfway along the new line at the triangular junction. The extension building was removed, this will be re-used on the indoor section, and the waiting shelter and ticket office was given a new coat of paint to represent whitewash. It is painted with exterior masonry paint and the colour is named 'Buttermilk' which has a slight off white appearance. The halt will be named Aughaclay, using the original name board; which is almost as long as the very short platform!