SOUTHDOWN LAKER DEPOT

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All materials for this diorama were, with the exception of the lighting, the remote-control vehicle, and a job lot of used and abused buses, by necessity, needed to be scrounged from my scrap box or created to avoid the covid-related restrictions mentioned above.

The buildings were scratch-built using card and plastic sheets with a little foam board. The clear window material was judiciously removed from an old display box. Sliding doors were added to the garage and my attempts at representing encroaching vegetation added. Small paper advertisements were cut from old railway magazines and added to the walls of the buildings. The window frames were constructed using scrap box extruded reclaimed sections.

The viaduct was a fortuitous purchase from a charity shop. These had been condemned due to damage but still resembled Tri-ang bright strawberry red brick viaducts from the 1960s.

They were cut and modified to size, parapets were added by sculpturing from clay, and the brickwork defined with a scalpel. Then vegetation and verdant ground scatter were added. Suitable surface water drainage was represented by cutting and shaping old sprue material. These structures were then subject to my first serious encounters with an airbrush and weathering powders; Dark Earth, Rust, Sand and Grime being the predominant choices. The arches were to be used for storage of various depot ancillaries and general depot detritus; therefore, one arch has a set of lock-up doors added. Track and ballast were laid, after colour mixing with weathered highlights to define train stopping points at signals. Weeds were then selectively added and ivy climbers on several of the arches.

For the sylvan area, the rocks were formed from oak bark I had in the log store, shaped in places and selectively darkened with dark earth. Shrubs, vegetation and scatter material originally from Gaugemaster but now recycled, were surreptitiously placed within the escarpment. Whilst the trees were heavily modified and covered with a mixture of scatter material, they still represent a modelling commodity. The stone wall is also recycled from an old layout, modified to suit, weathered, and again treated to a discernible amount of scatter material. The railings were converted from Wills kits to fit the scratch-built brickwork, both were then subject to weathering with rust and dark earth.

The yard floodlighting was sourced from Etsy in the US and runs on a switched 3v battery supply, each small LED having to be connected via a 3v Buss underneath the baseboard.

The depot yard is rubber matting from the top layer of a laminated food standard-approved conveyor belt. This has been painted and weathered, but now needs additional refinement once the inspection pit has been completed.

The various fuelling points were scratch-built with modified card, plastic and parts from scrap wagons, again all from my scrap box. Decals were computergenerated and fixed to the tanks etc.

The zebra crossing with operating Belisha beacons was sourced from Kytes Lights. This needed diode protection and ran from a direct switched 3v supply. The battery units and switches were all accommodated in a small box attached to the front of the module frame to enable easy switching into night mode and when necessary, battery replacement.

The Southdown collection of both commuter and long-distance coach and buses were bought via eBay as used second-hand or damaged. These were repaired and painted where required. The only specific procurement was for the Oxford Scammell tow truck.

The vehicle washing unit is a heavily modified, damaged Scenecraft carriage washer, painted and weathered by judicious airbrushing.

In order to make the diorama more interesting and interactive, there is currently a (shortly to be two) radio-controlled vehicle. The Unimog is a Carson kit, airbrushed into Southdown colours and weathered. This has provision for 35 minutes running time on a single charge. Front and rear lighting also feature. The current project underway is to modify the chassis and steering unit of another Carson kit to fit into a bus body. The gearing will also need to be ratioed down to a more prototypical bus speed. Duplex wheel arrangement will be made for the rear of the bus.

I did not set out to create perfection, but to learn how best to continually and methodically improve by stretching my boundaries of competence.

Further identified improvements would be: the second remote-controlled bus, hand-made trees, more weathering to the road and depot yard and a workshop digital sound card for the garage placed in a parked vehicle. Provision has already been made for a garage pit with lighting and more service auxiliary fittings for the workshop areas. There also needs to be more judicious weathering of the vehicles.

Brian Smith