‘Terror Street’
It isn’t just sci-fi that gets Laurie rocketing to the nearest model shop for supplies. He also enjoys the dark atmosphere of the night and the idea for ‘Terror Street’ came to the forefront of his mind while watching an episode of the TV show
Ripper Street.
“The first episode of series 3 featured a train crash. I thought this basic theme would be interesting to model but rather than a crash with injured people, I wanted to show the emergency service workers doing their jobs. I also felt the model would have atmosphere, a dark and dingy feel, populated by scary people from fact and fiction. So the layout features a tiny Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, Sherlock Holmes, and even, on occasion, tripods from War of
the Worlds. Terror Firma
Set in Victorian London between 1888 and 1898, ‘Terror Street’ was built slowly over a period of six months, two nights a week, at Romford MRS. It’s a 5ft by 2ft ‘OO’ gauge diorama built with Hornby sectional track and powered by the trusty Gaugemaster Model D controller. There are only three working locomotives on ‘Terror Street’ alongside the crashed Dapol
LYR ‘Pug’ kit. The street level tracks are home to two Hornby 0-4-0STS, an LYR ‘Pug’ and a new Peckett ‘W4’. On the viaduct, a Hornby ‘Terrier’ shuttles back and forth, again using a Gaugemaster shuttle unit. “Unlike ‘Cato Pass’, I made the surrounding box myself from 6mm plywood with an angled roof to allow me to fit all the lights into the diorama. The lack of space made this the most difficult part of the build, but the tedium has proven to be well worth it as it creates so much atmosphere. “I wanted a dark model on which you could almost smell the terror, and a big dramatic puff of smoke in the middle around the train accident in the brewery. This is the focal point of the whole diorama. The story is that Mr Hyde was blocking the line and caused the train to derail. I use a disco smoke machine to create the vapours around it, but it gets very hot when in operation.
SINISTER SILHOUETTES
“Classic buildings from the London skyline form the back scene, printed in black and cut out in paper. I then tacked these on to the black sky, and used a can of red primer to give a glow effect, as if the sun is setting. All of the ‘evil’ goings-on occur at night so this helps add to the atmosphere for the diorama. “Being a Victorian layout the streets are cobblestone and I needed a fast way to produce them as I had eight square feet to cover. I made an inverse cobble-shaped press out of FIMO clay and pressed this into air-drying DAS clay. The two did not stick to each other, and the DAS dried over a couple of nights. I could then paint it, and dry-brush cobble highlights into them. This worked well for a fast effect and there are no joins.”