Progress Report 27

With the onset of Spring and some leave booked over Easter, it was time to tame the garden. In addition to pruning a few of the more energetic shrubs and giving the lawn its first trim, time was found to do some detailing of the railway. A couple of the station buildings have been fixed in place, a road has been constructed with two overbridges, a corner has been re-landscaped and a roadside cottage sited.

The road and cottage

The cottage is a pottery model made by Stanton Abbey Pottery. This model is of a canalside cottage but I felt it looked like a toll-cottage, hence its position beside the road. The owner of the pottery, Robert Silkstone, contacted me after I placed the order to ask for my preferred colour scheme and I so I asked for the stonework to be matched to the local sandstone. The quality of finish is quite impressive.

This corner of the garden lies within a triangle of track near Bulkeley Station. After digging it over and relocating some of the conifers, I dug a trench for the road (see How I made a road) and for the base of the cottage. Coloured concrete was poured into the trench on a foundation of rubble and the cottage was carefully positioned while the concrete was wet. I have heard that models which are securely fixed in place are covered by household insurance whereas those which are removeable are not.

Overbridges
Two overbridges have been cast in concrete in situ. Rather than constructing them from ply, I decided to go for something more durable - besides, I like working with concrete (see How I cast two concrete overbridges).

Station buildings
So far, two station buildings have been fixed in place. A concrete base was cast for the building at Bulkeley which was modified from a children's toy (see How I made a station building from a £5.50 toy) in a similar way to that for the cottage. It was raised to plaform height and given jigstones slabs for the plaform edging. To fix the building in place, a piece of 4"x 3/4" timber was cut to length to fit snugly inside the building. This was then screwed to the concrete plinth with rawlplugs. Brass screws were then screwed into the wooden block through the sides of the building. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see one of the screws to the right of the steps leading up to the door.

A similar approach was used to fix the station building into place at Beeston Market. Again, the screws can be seen either side of the Robin starch advert. These will be touched-up with paint.

This building was constructed from a T&M Models kits (see How I assembled the station buildings).

How I made a road

After deciding on the location for the road leading up to one of the overbridges (see How I cast two concrete overbridges), I trimmed a piece of card to act as a template for some hardboard shuttering. This was to contain the concrete for the roadway leading up to one side of an overbridge.

The template was placed on the hardboard, drawn round and then the hardboard was cut using a jigsaw.
The same was repeated for the other side of the shuttering and the two pieces were held in place with wooden stakes (bamboo canes).


Where the roadway reached ground level, a trench was dug with a trowel to a depth of around 4"

The trench and shuttering was half filled with crushed rubble and gravel.........


... and then sufficient concrete was mixed (3 parts sand, one part gravel and one part cement). Red cement dye was added with the water once the components had been dry-mixed.


More water was added until the concrete mix reached the consistency of thick custard.

The concrete was then poured into the shuttering and trench........

.... and smoothed off with a small builders' trowe.

Coarse builders' sand was then sprinkled into the wet concrete and gently tamped down with an old paintbrush.


Once the concrete had set to its 'green' state (ie not fully hardened), the shuttering was removed and stonework was carved into what would become a retaining wall leading up to the bridge. An earth embankment was created where more appropriate.