Garden Railway Forum

Started to build a small wayside maintenance depot intended for smaller repairs, maintenance and fuelling. It will also have a small shelter for the crew to keep rain. The base depicting a concrete slab was cut from some surplus 8mm thick foamboard, edges roughened a bit and scribed to give an impression of concrete casting using wooden boards. I bought some cheap coffee stirrers (190 x 6 x 2 mm) lollysticks (110 x 10 x 2 mm) for the wooden parts. I began to laminate with PVA glue some of the 6 mm stuff in order have roughly 4x4" timber support posts.

A good start, Allu. That base does look a lot like concrete.

Rik

Watching with interest.
Grant

Support beams start to be ready. I made the door functional, the hinges I cut and filed from some old gift box. Door handle is scrap brass. I distressed the planks by filing and carving.

Beautiful distressing! It's looking very realistic already.

All main beams done, added some shelves into the toolstorage.

Looking good, are the walls going to be corrugated iron?
Grant.

LNR wrote: Wed Mar 18, 2026 11:57 pm Looking good, are the walls going to be corrugated iron?
Grant.

Thanks, this is so much easiar on my eyes, I used to model decades in smaller scales, last few years in Z-scale (1:220)! I will do the roof with corrugated iron. The walls will be plank cladded.

Allu wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 5:22 am this is so much easiar on my eyes,

Your not on your own there!
And the larger scale means you can make things actually work, as you have with the door.
Grant.

I have to echo what the others have said, well done so far.
Just a thought, it looks as though the front left upright is slightly twisted inwards? It might be worth pinning a temporary horizontal beam at low level across the opening, to keep it square until you have the cladding and roof fixed.

philipy wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 8:13 am I have to echo what the others have said, well done so far.
Just a thought, it looks as though the front left upright is slightly twisted inwards? It might be worth pinning a temporary horizontal beam at low level across the opening, to keep it square until you have the cladding and roof fixed.

Thanks for the sharp eye but it is merely a case of my s###t camera and bad shooting angle. It creates a barrel distortion to my photos I have noticed also before taking photos of objects with horizontal and vertical lines

Added a bench for the tired workers and started the cladding.

Cladding done. Now some filing and sanding to do before the next phase.

I really like the weathering effect on the timber, most convincing.
Something troubles me slightly about the door though. Certainly here in UK the bracing would be on the inside to prevent water gathering on the rails. I appreciate it adds to your detailing but if the door opens it could be left that way to show it off.
Nice job!

also thinking about the door.

I woul expect the shed door to have a hoizontal bar across the bottom to keep rain from going under the door and into the shed.
In German the thing is called Wetterschenkel.

Peter Butler wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2026 4:00 pm I really like the weathering effect on the timber, most convincing.
Something troubles me slightly about the door though. Certainly here in UK the bracing would be on the inside to prevent water gathering on the rails. I appreciate it adds to your detailing but if the door opens it could be left that way to show it off.
Nice job!

I'd explain it away as the designer wanted the door to open away from the shelter area and the builder put it up the wrong way around.

You are absolutely correct Graeme, there is often a perfectly good reason for doing things differently, but the need to explain them away each time someone points it out soon becomes tiresome.
On the other hand, it may be a challenge to see if anyone notices?

A real handyman would have build the door in another way for sure,and the whole shack for that matter ,but I have seen some real-life makeshift shelters made in very interesting ways... Now doing some painting and weathering...

Thanks for the explanation Allu, as long as you are happy with it that's what matters.
The weathering has made a huge difference to the presentation, a 'Cracking Job' as they say in these parts!

Yes, I second what Peter said about the weathering specially the inside "unpainted" look of worn timber.
Grant.