Sunday 20 April 2014

Reality and Fantasy

Mutually exclusive terms I hear you say. Well I'm not so sure; let me explain .....

For the past few months I've been building a narrow gauge micro layout in 009. The notion was to build a layout to fit into an old leather suitcase I had found, however nothing much had happened until we took a holiday in Belgium. Freed from the practicalities of layout building I had time to plan and concoct a history for the line and its fictional setting of Little Point, a sand spit protruding into the North Sea. Many of the elements of this back story are plainly fantasy, a sort of Emett-esque rendering of an Ealing Comedy. It's this barely believable, imagined train of events which make the line live in my mind and motivate me to press on with its construction. In many ways it's as real (or even more real) than my more grounded essays like Shell Island and Morfa. Here, have some pictures.




While I hope you will have enjoyed the photos I'd also like to think that the railway seems plausible to the viewer. What I'd like to point out at this stage is that none of the component parts is anyway near an accurate copy of a real life example. All the bits and pieces I've constructed into a whole are at best loosely based on something similar, but more often are utter figments of my imagination.






6 comments:

James Finister said...

Neil,

First of all it is great to see activity on your blogs again. i always find what you get up to inspiring ever since seeing the first photos of Shell Island.

Not sure if you've come across the Emett Society http://www.rowlandemett.com/ but there is a big exhibition of his work opening in Birmingham soon

Neil said...

Thank you James. I've known about the Emett society for couple of years ever since a near neighbour(also a fan) alerted me to it. I can catch a direct train from here to Birmingham, will have to see if I can fit in a visit.

Resin Drive said...
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Anonymous said...

Neil, Great to see another exercise - the cottage looks as if it is based on the Airfix Country Cottage, but using tiles instead of thatch? Many thanks for the inspiration!

How small is the layout?

Mike

Neil said...

Hello Mike, it's small. About 2' by 1'6".

The cottage (pub actually, but there's no sign as yet) is the Aifix cottage re roofed but it has also had the dubious half timbering sanded off and a rough lime rendered texture applied too.

MIke said...

Neil no fantasy, just reality - have a look at this - - with plenty of opportunity for realistic Aero modelling, on a desert island!
http://raf-masirah.weebly.com/the-railway.html