Is DON... Is Good...

All,

In an earlier post i included a shot of an under construction boiler house & gave an assurance that i would also add another post pertaining to the whole complex to put the earlier shot into context....Here's the story...

Before i had the layout room benched & ready to go, I embarked on a plan to create industrial dioramas that could be incorporated into the layout as it took shape.

In hindsight the plan was flawed because i had no firm trackplan in place nor did i have any real idea as to where these dioramas would fit into the big picture.

Putting aside the negatives, it did give me a chance to reintroduce myself to building structures & also gave me the ability to try different detailing & landscaping ideas with a view to proving some & discarding what didn't work.

Well planned dioramas do however give the portability to enable the project to be moved between locations to allow modelling at any time that suits....Especially winter nights here in the tablelands.

Luckily only a couple of these dioramas were commenced before i realised the futility of the excersize, without a final home on the layout was assured.

The industry at the heart of this post is the DON smallgoods factory that was to adorn the corner of the layout located on the down end of Fish River yard. ( opposite end of the layout from the river )

The attached photos show an incomplete diorama & sad as it seems...i cannot see it ever being incorporated into the layout in its present form.

The basic issue is that the board it was built on is way too big & even if modified will impede the radius of curve i desire as the trackwork leaves Fish River to turn the corner.

So the upshot is the industry buildings will be finished & incorporated....but the rest will most probably be trashed.

As touched on earlier this diorama was a good practice tool & has helped immensely with proving ( or disproving ) methods i will adopt in the layout as my skills improve.

Anyway the shots tell the story...

DON Smallgoods

Overall View Of The Siding & Buildings...
I have NO idea why i included a second road???
The Loading Dock Decking is laying across tracks awaiting fitment.

Another View of DON Smallgoods showing the faded signage that needs to be weathered to
take away the "whiteness" of the signage
The roof of the loading dock....needs colour improvement

One idea i had was to produce concrete areas with inherent expansion joints & irregular cracking...
including drains utilising the laser... Apart from the colouring & lack of final weathering i am quite
pleased with the result

A sort of close up of the drains...apart from depth inside the drain...a fair facsimile in model form