Brendam Docks Layout Plans

These are some drawings of a layout for Brendam Docks! If I was to make a huge layout, for this section of Sodor, these are a few sections of how I would like to see Brendam Modeled.

Carefully observing how the scenes were filmed on the dioramas of Brendam for Thomas' TV Series in seasons 2 - 10, I tried combining them together into one whole section of the main port, where you can see Cranky, the Sidings, the Unloading Bays in front of the Sodor Shiping Co. Building, and even the Passenger Unloading Dock where Evening Star is a welcome visitor. There is also the Ballast Unloading Dock, with its nearby open air shed, factory buildings, The Supply Shed, and a few other sheds, one by the sidings, by Cranky, and at the end of the quay.

The whole site is dotted with cranes, cargo, and sidings. I have modeled a couple of versions of this location a few times, yet as I come back to the TV series, even the Railway Series, I find intriguing details and beautiful shots I can draw to remember for the next time I model a layout. That is the beauty of making temporary dioramas! You can change or redo any location.

I found some beautiful photographs of the Ramsgate Harbor Railway Station, and a few models of the terminus on flickr, I thought it would be nice to draw Brendam's Passenger Station, seen in a few shots from seasons 2 - 4, just made up of Knapford's building props. This drawing has platforms for buses to pick up and drop off passengers, many benches on the quay for the people to enjoy the ocean view while they wait, and of course a large glass roof. A beautiful scene showing one of the harbor's ferries could be seen in "Gordon and the Gremlin" in season 5, one of Fulton's Car Ferries.

Finally this drawing shows what I perceive to be East Brendam, where Bill and Ben's branchline from the China Clay works connect to the Docks. This layout plan displays many of the scenes shown in season 3, with its tall warehouses and quay, cranes, and canal boats, from "All At Sea" and other episodes with Bill and Ben.

These were fun to draw! I hope you like these. Even if I break them up into smaller, temporary dioramas for photographs and video, these scenes seem to me that they would be beautiful models.

 Click here to see how I made the scenes of Brendam

Knapford Station Goods Shed

I have been waiting to post this newly completed project! A few days ago I completed my new and most favorite building for my future layout, a goods shed commonly scene in Thomas's classic episodes.

Completely scratch built, as usual, it is made out of textured card-stock and balsa wood, but I feel this structure is special as I used a number of new model-making techniques that I wish to share with you, and a little background of the prop's history on the Thomas Show.

You will find this shed in the sidings that run parallel to Knapford Station. If you look carefully, from season 1 to 5, this shed had a wall in the back, some drain pipes, and there are a few differences in the structure's design.

In the production of "Thomas and the Magic Railroad," many of the buildings commonly used on the sets through the years were remodeled, remolded, and painted very realistically, including this shed. It noticeably gained some faded green roof frames with gables and braces, as well as the brick reliefs on the side of the outside wall.

I found that I liked this look better, so I based construction on how this shed looked then onwards. The shed first housed two tracks, probably as a 2-stall goods shed for only 2 cars (maybe for the mail cars perhaps?), then only one, probably as a spare single stall engine shed. Both Diesel 10 and Donald have been seen when the set was made this way.

In this post I want to pin up my detailed drawing of the goods shed. Recently I have been practicing making a measured sketch of every building I want to make, pages of them, from tool sheds to stations and mostly warehouses and sheds. I find that sometimes I have to sketch different versions as I feel the measurements can be changed or are not accurate to the original or reality.

In this case I found the width of the entrance to be too narrow to have two tracks as I cut the textured card out to piece together. The Bachmann Percy model has the widest clearance space compared to the other engines as his footplates are spaced quite far from the chassis (I'm not sure the width of Diesel's though, as he is on my wish list...). So I simply made the adjustments as I redrew the measurements on the card to be cut for the shed's walls. I also decided to exclude the molding on the roof as there isn't any on the original. Photographed is the finished product.

A thick piece of balsa wood serves to add thickness to the wall and extra strength, much better than just the fragile card super-glued on the edges! I used wood and layered paper to create the relief wall and arches, and the four reliefs you see with the added tiles.

Thick strips of card was used here to construct the vent structure on top of the roof. If an engine uses this shed at night or is just passing through, these vents allow the smoke exhaust to escape the shed.

Here I wanted to try and make the roof removable, so I could fit this spare piece of balsa to mount LED shed lamps in the future.

When the time comes to make the diorama or layout of Knapford, I can have holes drilled to mount the lights and then have them wired.

The wires would be fed under the table and connected to a small power box, but I hope there can be a way to do that without the building being permanently glued to the table for showings.

There is a great book called "The Encyclopedia of Model-Making Techniques" by Christopher Payne, and I recommend this book for beginner and professional scale modellers.

In it there is a great tip on how to make tiles using strips of card with slits cut with a craft knife. Many railway layouts use this technique in the British Isles, and as I did want to model the shingles in 3D, I thought I would have a go. The results look fantastic and very convincing once dry-brushed.

I am very happy with it; it takes a while but a little time can produce a better model whatever your subject!

On top of that, I glued one side onto card strips so you could open it and see the interior. Here I made the sections of gables that support the roof, all from painted balsa wood.

This will also make it easier to wire the lights and fasten the wire onto the wall to make it appear realistically wired as it would be in real life.

Here is a look inside looking up into the gables. This would be a great prop to film on the diorama for close ups of the engines.

I really wanted to take my time and do my very best with this building, and I think compared to some of the other buildings I have posted, this is by far the best one so far. Thomas is a great inspiration, and a prime example of fine scale modelling.

Finally here it is on my table with some other props to show you how it looks on set. It is a quick set up and not as detailed, but it does show you the stuff I've been making for the past few months in my summer holiday from college.

Feel free to post some feedback. Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Boats and Trawlers #1: Fishing Village

One Time I wanted to film scenes of the Fishing Village, so here are photographs of the set I made and the small fishing trawlers docked alongside the waterfront.

I used wooden planks, blocks and boxes to create the hill in the background, so I could lay the row of houses and terraces I made (from scratch with card-stock), in two rows with Woodland Scenics trees. The water is plexiglass laid on top of my green quilt for grass, the edges of the glass covered with garden pebbles. Here you can also see a good view of the painted wall of rolling hills and distant mountains my Dad and I painted for the landscape backdrop.

Here on my desk is the largest one of the fleet, "Burkett Fish." The body made with card-stock, mast with a wooden skewer, and a bit of thread to support it. Generous weathering for paint stains on the hull and bits of rust were added for the finishing touches.
You can also see how I made windows using ink squares drawn on the paper. Now I use clear plastic, and by far, it looks much more realistic, and it is much easier to use a craft knife for those delicate cuts! Crazy glue is used to glue it into place.

Here is the trawler on the set, dropping off some crates of seafood off for Stepney to take back to warehouses at Knapford Yards for the marketplace. This is a personal favorite, and it looked really nice on the waterfront alongside the Railway.

Here were the two smaller trawlers, "Rebecca" and "Susan Lee," simpler in design but are very good for background elements or of course adding variety to the scene, inspired by some of those found in Seasons 3 and 4. Also made from card.

Behind the Scenes: Brendam Docks

The Docks have been a common theme for my last two uploads, so to fulfill requests, here are some photographs of this set and how I made them:

This is a photograph based on the opening sequence of "Horrid Lorry." Just like the Narrow Gauge engunes such as Sir Handel, Rheneas and Skarloey, all of the buildings, open-aired sheds, cranes and ships are made of card-stock, glued and assembled together. Even the clay figures I've sculpted myself (more on that on another post, stay tuned!). Gordon is shunting Bachmann Branchline Vans in the siding.

Here is one of the ships. This was featured many times as different characters on TUGS, and it took quite a bit of searching to find the right pictures to work from, but it was well worth the extra effort!

This ship is also made of card-stock paper! Balsa wood was used for the masts, with black thread to tie them together and decorate them. Glass is plastic egg carton, so you can see the interior. The ship in the background has a light, and you can see it in the previous posts and in "Something in the Air," and "Cranky Bugs!"

 

Here's Percy, waiting for his cars to be coupled. The chain is a spare Lego chain.

Here is also the Salvage Barge seen in Thomas' "Horrid Lorry" and "Bulstrode" episodes. The crane's cab can turn, and the arm is adjustable, too.

From the Flying Kipper scene, here are some open wagons from Bachmann Brachline, and of course the Ertl die-cast Crosby Truck! I used lights for the night scenes in warehouses and sheds. This one in particular is from the original "Flying Kipper" Railway Series illustration, with its long platform.

These pictures are from Tidmoth Yards, but shown are the cargo I have modeled and made from scratch out of card-stock paper. The skids are painted and weathered balsa wood strips, with many painted spare parts and Woodland Scenics kits. You can also see a better view of the tiny HO scale clay figures I have made from Sculpy clay.

 

Here is a clay face I made for one of the vans! First getting the vans, I really wanted to see what they would look like with a face on. So studying from the pictures here, I sculpted and carved the face using Sculpy. I think this is the best Troublesome Truck face I ever did!

 

I will be posting "Horrid Lorry" in a week after my collage classes, so you can see more of the lorries on these flatbeds! Each are Base Toys from ehattons.com, and I even made their classic faces too.

Happy Modelling!

Behind the Scenes: The "Flying Kipper's" Rolling Crane

A viewer recently asked how I made the crane in the Flying kipper sequence. The rolling crane has always been one of my favorites, so here are the photographs:

Studying from the video, I made the main body out of balsa wood, using the Atlas track knife to make smooth cuts. White glue was all that was needed for assembly. the crane's base is the grey card-stock.

I must say it was a challenge to make the wheels!

I wrapped strips of card-stock around a pen, then glued it together. Next I glued the roll onto paper, then cut it into a larger circle on each end to make the roll into a wheel.

I had to punch into the wheel holes to insert the axle into place, which is made out of cut toothpicks! Gluing the axle onto the axle boxes, leaving the wheels unglued, allowed the wheels to actually roll!

This was tough, but it was well worth the effort:

Here is the finished product! I made the cab the same way as I do with the buildings, assembling it with tape and using balsa wood braces to make it square. I also made the crane hoist out of wood and paper. You can also see both the cranes I made based on those used at Brendam Docks' quayside, as well as the warehouse seen in the original "Flying Kipper" story in the Railway series.

The track which the crane rolls on is also made from balsa wood. This allows the crane to cover longer distances as it loads the trains and ships with their cargo.

So this is how I got the crane to move. I taped fishing line onto the base of the wheel supports...

...Then looped the string around the coupler of an engine for very smooth motion. This worked really well and it came out beautifully in the final footage...

As a special surprise, here is a picture I took while filming the scene. Henry looks on as the workers load the fish into his Bachmann Branchline and Dapol vans, the light from the ship's cab flaring, cargo lying alongside the track, and the moonlight generated from a large office lamp looms over the quay. I put a light in the ship and controlled it with a cheep remote controller.

If only I had fog!

This scene is actually from "Thomas and the Spaceship," when Thomas was trundling along the forest with his long line of mail cars. That reminds me of those gorgeous promotional posters of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, and how beautifully modeled the diorama was made with the colorful lighting. Cool stuff!

There is a long, thin wooden plank wit a strip of textured green paper, which lies underneath the loosely ballasted track and protects the afghan quilt. I usually just lie the track on the quilt I use for the countryside, especially for branchline scenes, but for mainline sets like this, I had tried using this method, which looks much nicer! The Woodland Scenics Trees have their bases popped in place through the large holes of the quilt, and the dark green lichen is from A.C. Moore craft store.

Never Stop Creating!