STRUCTURES:

Gravel Road has only two buildings – the corrugated steel-clad, one-road engine shed, and the small yard office at the other end.

The shed was built using Ratio 4mm-scale corrugated sheet; I used the same materials for the walls and roof. I also used smaller pieces for the doors. Not sure about the windows: I've had them (and more yet to use) in my scrap box for years. I think they're American HO scale.

The result, though, is a fairly typical Australian-looking building.

The yard office is a sawn-down 4mm-scale British signal box with a corrugated steel roof fitted.

The staithes are built from scraps of scale timber from my junk box, and the corrugated steel fencing was also from my junk box. I clipped it into sheet-sized strips, and used Liquid Nails adhesive to secure these to two scale timber beams – top and bottom.

All the trees are also hand-made, using twisted welding cable wire covered in Modelling medium. I find this easier to work with than, say, plaster, and it’s better able to handle the rough and tumble of the layout being moved.

The vehicles, rubbish skips and pieces of rubbish and broken equipment scatted around the site are all from my junk box, and seem to be recirculated each and every time I build an industrial layout like this!

And God knows where the power poles came from! But a lick of paint after more than 25 years of patiently waiting in a scrap box and they look as good as new.

Perhaps the most interesting – and oldest – piece is the Shell fuel tank near the engine shed. This comes from an original Lone Star 000-‘scale’ diecast toy, made and sold in the early 1960s. Somehow it seems to fit in with the small size of the overall layout.

FINAL COSTS:

And what has Gravel Road cost me?

* One piece of ply (for the base) - an offcut from 'spares' pile in the back of the garage.

* Three sheets of what we can Canite, a soft, easily cut material, sandwiched together, and contoured (also for the base) - more offcuts. This material has good sound-deadening qualities.

* Hand made trees and structures - also from scraps from my junk box

* Scenic materials - a mix of ancient Woodland Scenics ground covers and teased green carpet wool fibres

* Locos - each cost about $90

* Rolling stock items - all second-hand, about $10 all up

* Track and switches - about $50

* Road vehicles - bought so long ago, I can't remember

* Track 'ballast' - finely sifted gravel from the side of roads around NSW

* Construction time - on and off - about six months

Overall experience? Priceless!