With a small portion of background scenery looking complete Welsh Pony came out to pose. This building should provide a really interesting backdrop for rolling stock pictures. I think it has shades of the Harbour Station backdrop before the Britania Foundary was demolished.

The small extension has been completed today. The render effect is better than expected now it is set off by the windows.This extension is based on photographs from the 1920's. It doesn't appear in the earlier photo shown at the head of this page and by 1939 it had been rebuilt as a full height extension. Piecing together the layout of the houses suggests it might have been a staircase as it lines up with the very tall windows that appear to be a main stair well. If anyone has further information I would be interested to hear. Several interesting features were discovered talking to the public whilst exhibiting Dulas, this allowed updates and modifications to be made as we went along. Of course having plonked an imaginary railway in the village already, I probably shouldn't be worrying about such details!

I'm starting to realise that I have massively underestimated the time its going to take to build each house to the standard I want. Almost every building has intricate bay windows and it has taken an afternoon just to build this single bay! But for me its features such as this which are as important as rolling stock in creating the complete picture. I want the houses to be real characters. This is a village where everybody knows each others business, curtains twitch and comings and goings at the station are the centre of village gossip….

A'Blue Peter' guide to window construction…

Once the outer frame has been cut out, a second lamination is marked out to produce the upper sash unit. The lower section is exactly the same size as the outer frame.

 The top sash is aged to the frame, and the lower sash is marked out and cut.

 This creates the distinctive stepped in appearance.

Thin strips of cartridge paper are then cut using a craft knife. These are used to make the glazing bars

The glazing bars are carefully glued into place before the window is painted. The glazing bars in the bottom half of the window can be added once the top half is fully glazed.

This is the first building I have made in 5.5mm scale and the advantages of this scale are really becoming apparent. Without using professionally etched or laser cut windows you can create really well proportioned units.

The bay window and lean-to have been rendered in white pepper. The bay window is a very delicate structure until the glazing material is added. One sash is going to be modelled open to allow for a person to be leaning out and remonstrating with a person on the ground. The ground level at this corner of the building are quite complex with the ground being higher to the right of the ground floor window.

This is the etch for bogie brake van 4/5. This will form part of the 'red' liveried rake. I intend to build all the rolling stock in one go so that each element of the build can be done production line style. I think I will need to order quite a few more door handle etches from Malcolm! Being brass, the carriages will be quite heavy; which should't be too much of a problem as the rakes I intend to run will be of no more than four bogie vehicles in length. The line is on a gentle gradient rising towards the Cricieth end, and if I ever get to build the next section which will see the line winding around the rocky headland, the gradient will be steeper. With this in mind the etched bogies will be fitted with pinpoint bearings.

I've finally got something done! The first window has been added to the cottages. Built up from three layers of thin card to represent the sash, I've used the methods described in the Pendon book of cottage modelling. Its a really fiddly method and i've got a lot of them to do on this building alone. The houses will each have their own paint scheme in suitable period colours. Although not obvious from this angle, the three laminations give a good 3D effect and bring the building to life. This first cottage has two bay windows as well as the lean-to.

Despite there being a break in the blog for the last two months there have been some significant developments. The main one being the delivery of etches for six bogie carriages from Worsley Works. More about these shortly…...