These images are about two years old, I find that surprising because sometimes time seems to stand still with a layout, despite progress being made. Shelfie2 has had a bit of a Byzantine journey, ranging from a North Wales DMU based through station, to Southern electric, Great Central DMU, and land at its final destination, a drift mine loading point off the Whittle colliery branch in Northumberland. Even then that’s not likely to be the end of the tale, part of its design is that it can be used as a module, and there’s still that Forest of Dean system I have on the bucket list. Severn & Dean

For me it’s interesting to look back and see how once I’d settled the final design, how close I got and am getting to my ‘minds eye’ picture of how it should look.

If this looks all a bit ‘Friday afternoon’ it is! Why is there a ski glove sticking out of the layout? Not only is it part of my super new winter range, but it also covers a G clamp, and forms eye and scratch protection. Handling bright lights means stuff sometimes goes unexpectedly into shadow and is easy to miss!, be safe out there kids…

This is the backscene mocked up from wallpaper lining paper, but set in the core framework for the lighting. I can now get a really good feeling about how it’ll look and what it’s like to operate for real. Before it goes out anywhere I’ll know the pro’s and cons of what I’ve built, and if fitting it as a module into the Severn and Dean project is viable. So far, so good!

Full Lighting

Without Rear Downwash Lighting

This is the effect Albion Yard used, the blue in Albion’s backdrop bounced cool tones back into the layout. This time I’m using 4000k LED battens, rather than Albion’s traditional fluorescent tubes. The idea here will be to try an overcast sky, heralding an imminent rain shower. So the skies tonal value will be emphasised towards cool greys. I need to play around a bit more with the colours as I want a diffused distant tree covered hill line, which will require opposing warm brown tones for this time of year.

Backlit Downwash Lighting

I’ve also changed a few trees and one foreground building has gone. Just these simple light tests can tell me if something is ‘wrong’ on the scenic side. The additional tree diffusers (from Albion Yard), indicates the rear downwash lighting will minimise shadows falling onto the backscene which is really pleasing. Neither LED lighting batten has a dimmer fitted, this is something I’ll look at to play around with intensity. I already think the rear batten needs to be higher, reducing intensity and increasing the spread. Next step is the pure white background, this lining paper is an off white, in effect giving a cream/yellow cast on the reflected light, (see image four) . Then it’s take a few more forward steps from there, hopefully that’s next week!