Saturday 14 July 2012

OGAM & STONE Narrow Gauge Railway diorama layout

Ogam & Stone - Stone Masons is a small self-contained narrow gauge railway layout that was built some years ago as both a means of showing off my 'scratch building' skills and as a promotional layout for the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association.

The layout has featured in Narrow Lines The Magazine of The 7mm Narrow Gauge Association as well as being seen at a number of local railway and modelling shows in the Midlands.

The track layout is a simple oval with one turnout/point which leads to the front of the main building and over a (non-working) turntable.

Most of the items on display are either scratch-built or converted. For example; The main building is built from card with Das modelling clay stonework carved on. The roof has been tiled with individual paper roof tiles and the windows are clear plastic with hand built window frames.

The smaller building or workshop is again built over a card core but this time with balsawood cladding and a plastic card corrugated roof.

While the external office (or small green shed) is again scratch-built, this time from mounting board.

The crane is operational (it swivels) and the turntable was built from plastic card.

99% of the 'clutter' is scratch-built from mounting card and plastic card while the groundwork is actual sieved Droitwich dirt laid over a plaster core.

The layout is finished to a very high standard with every detail painted and matt varnished. While the inspiration is fictional, almost every item (building, signage, clutter and equipment) is based on an actual item or original.













The Name OGAM & STONE was made up after seeing a stone/gravel lorry with the name OGAN. In Celtic Lore, Ogam is a magical written language carved into stone. Hence Ogam (stone carving) and Stone!

Technical Information;
Built to the scale of 7mm = 1foot (or O gauge) with 16.5mm gauge track imitating a 2foot 3inch Narrow Gauge Prototype - O-16.5 Notation.
Base or board size; 790mm x 450mm
Main Building footprint; 260mm x 150mm
Track; Peco 'Crazy Track' well weathered
Turnout; Peco Standard Gauge left hand turnout (heavily modified)
All Track is live - there are no isolated areas
There is RELCO unit built in to the main building
Power to both the track and RELCO unit is via the four pin connector to the front of the layout (see first photo)
The turnout is operated via 'wire-in-tube' and although the operating arm is broken the point still works via a short wire pin on the centre of the wooden walkway (again see first photo)
The Layout runs well and will operate with any 16.5mm gauge Tenshodo Spud based engine

I am contemplating selling the layout, both to make room and (in these difficult times) make some money. My Wife thinks I should keep it!

Tony

2 comments:

Leigh said...

That is a lovely little layout

Sam Wise said...

Awesome work!
it's not a common subject on "La Figoblogothèque" and so it's very nice to see such beautiful Railway Diorama!
The scratch-built buildings and accessories are each one a little piece of ART !
Congrats!

(don't sell it!)