Major Update!

I had almost a full weekend to only concentrate on this layout project for once and thus I could finally do many of the things I've planned to do to change the layout. I've been gathering some materials for a while and now I had all the time I needed to work on the modules and other things. 

I've been avoiding building new modules for a while now since my plans have been changing quite a bit over the last year and I want to be totally satisfied with the level of quality, functionality and realism of the current modules before I move on to new ones. This has resulted in a huge amount of work since these first modules were built at a time when I had totally different plans considering the layout, different standards that I set for myself and even less model building skills that I now have :)

Now that I'm starting to be satisfied in the current modules and can consider them 'finished', it might be time to start building something new soon!

New on the Layout

Here is a list of all the work I have done to all the four current modules. This took about 12-14 hours in total..!

Heart Cape

- Tidied the surfaces up with some water and paint

Flamewood Island

- Added a second row of Led-lighting to the roof. Now there's lights on top of both tracks and so the light spreads evenly on the station. I previously thought of just going with the original one row but wasn't satisfied with the lighting. The station originally had just one row because only half of the roof was modelled. The stations now have full roofs with a hinge-system for access purposes so I now have to also model all the lighting.

Hedgehog Avenue

Then...

- New trees have been placed around the module for a more varied scenery.

- The module has been treated with some Woodland Scenics soil to cover the last remaining surfaces that until now had just painted styrofoam.

- Platform displays have been added to the roof of the station, one on each side.

...and now

- The ticket machines have been converted to Finnish HSL-machines instead of the original German ones.

- Viessmann street lighting has been added.

- Two missing signals have been installed on the module and all four signals have been tidied up.

Eastern Lane

Before...

- The whole module has been lengthened by 7cm to accommodate for a new pair of turnouts.

- A new pair of turnouts has been installed and electric motors and decoders have been installed to all four turnouts. All turnouts now have the hand levers removed to be more prototypical.

- The track has been properly ballasted with grey ballast instead of the previous way of just laying the track on top of a gravel mat surface.

...after!

- The road has been changed to a wider one and curved parts fixed (the originals were way too clunky-looking). The road also now reaches the end of the module to be continued on the next one.

- Viessmann street lighting has been installed.

- The module got more trees, bushes, foliage and soil to cover all the painted surfaces as with Hedgehog Avenue. The background 'forest' area has been expanded and now includes a small gravel path that leads from the buildings to behind the track fence.

- A new woods-area has been made to the other end of the module on both sides of the track, previously only having a grass field. This includes low-density pine trees instead of spruces.

New on the Website

- All-new pictures added on both the Eastern Lane and the Hedgehog Avenue pages.

- Some other pictures changed from other pages to reflect the current state of the modules.

Introducing the Tka 4, along with some bus models!

New Rolling Stock

The Tka 4 work car is now finally finished! I have converted it from the Viessmann 2611 "Robel" that closely resembles the one found on the real metro, and can now say that I'm happy enough with the results.

The most obvious change is the paint scheme. The Tka 4 is fully yellow, so I had to paint the black parts in the original to yellow. This took a tremendous amount of work, much experimentation with enamel paints and although I still couldn't achieve a 100% smooth surface, I'm now fairly happy with the result. 

Image from www.raitio.org

Other new additions include a self-made exhaust pipe, new handrails (also self-made from scratch), decals, separating the front window and headlight panel into different parts with yellow borders and changing the location of ladders.

Some details of course still differ from the original but this modification is close enough to the "Tka 4" that I think the typical viewer accepts the minor differences, especially when considering the enormous amount of time saved by converting from a ready-made model instead of building from scratch.

Check out the video demonstration of the Tka 4!

The other thing that I finally did is that I took the necessary amount of time to go through the bus models, which I still were not happy with, and cleaned them up to a point that I can now finally consider them finished. Now I've set the standards for myself in how I want to convert the buses and what amount of detailing and quality is enough for me, and therefore I have now ordered three new models and will start working on them soon enough!

New on the website

- Updated the "Rolling Stock" and "Work Cars & Other Equipment" pages with pictures of the Tka 4.

- Updated the "Public Transport" page with pictures of the finished bus models

Layout section updated!

New on the website

Eastern Lane track plan made with Railmodeller Pro.

- The layout section has now been updated to suit for current plans, and now include new, more visual and detailed track plan screenshots, as I've begun to use Railmodeller Pro instead of Scarm.
- The "Overview" and "Modules" pages have been slightly altered and some text has been moved from one to the other for more coherency.
- Yet again, some corrections with spelling etc.